It’s almost a semi-annual event: Scientists discover that medications, approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, are found to have caused harm to patients. These revelations usually involve pulling those medications from the market, with a raft of lawsuits that follow. Examples in recent years include Vioxx, Bextra, Cylert, Baycol, Fen Phen and Palladone. Quite often those lawsuits involve class actions, where hundreds and even thousands of plaintiffs join in a single suit.
But there is a type of medical injury that can happen with perfectly fine, approved pharmaceuticals that somehow are delivered incorrectly to individual patients. At fault is the pharmacist and sometimes the physician who prescribed those drugs. The doctor may have done a poor job of handwriting the name of the drug on his or her prescription pad, which was then misinterpreted by the pharmacist. Your neighborhood druggist can create the problem with other types of mistakes as well. Here are some ways good drugs can do bad things with a misapplication:
- Bottling the wrong pills
- Bottling pills in the wrong dosage
- Providing the wrong instructions with the medication
- Mixing up customers
Such mistakes can result in a debilitating injury and even death in some cases. When that happens, it helps to work with a knowledgeable attorney who is experienced in personal injury and medical malpractice.
A qualified lawyer knows how to gather evidence that proves the mistake led to your injury and financial burdens. Contact an attorney who works with medical mistakes, including pharmacist errors, so that you and your family do not suffer financial hardship on top of a debilitating injury.
Dr. Michael M. Wilson is an attorney and a physician who earned his undergraduate degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his legal and medical degrees from Georgetown University. He has focused in the area of medical malpractice for more than three decades and secured more than $100 million in settlements and verdicts on behalf of clients throughout the country. He is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia and New York as well as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and the U.S. Supreme Court. He is listed in America’s Top 100 High Stakes Litigators.
