Lawsuit Alleges Companies hid Dangers of Levaquin Antibiotic

A lawsuit was filed Tuesday in Pennsylvania federal court against drug maker Janssen Pharmaceuticals and distributor McKesson Corp. on behalf of a Texas woman who alleges the companies failed to warn her of the known dangers of the antibiotic drug Levaquin, which caused her permanent nerve damage.

Catherine Farmer was given Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) blockbuster fluoroquinolone antibiotic Levaquin both during and after heart surgery in 2006. Farmer claims that rather than warning patients and physicians directly that Levaquin could cause permanent nerve damage, Janssen Pharmaceuticals and McKesson Corp. relied on a confusing label that between 2004 and 2013 advised consumers that nerve damage was rare and symptoms would disappear by discontinuing use, according to Law360.
Farmer alleges in the lawsuit obtained by Law360 that within weeks of being administered Levaquin in IV and pill form, she began experiencing pain and numbness in her arms and legs. By 2008, she was disabled and unable to work. Farmer says that she still experiences burning in her arms and legs and tingling in her scalp “as if it is on fire,” despite taking medication to help her live with her peripheral neuropathy symptoms, Law360 reports.

The plaintiff’s attorney told Law360 said that at the root of the lawsuit is the fact that the companies not only failed to warn the public, they also failed to warn doctors. He added that patients like Farmer would call their doctors complaining of pain, only to be told to finish the course of antibiotics, than see if the pain went away, according to Law360.
Levaquin was approved in 1996 as a treatment for bacterial infections of the skin, sinuses, kidneys, bladder or prostate, as well as infections such as bronchitis or pneumonia. According to the complaint, research showed a link between fluoroquinolones and peripheral neuropathy as early as the 1990s. In 2004, the companies changed Levaquin’s label to only to state that peripheral neuropathy symptoms were rare, even after they were advised that patients were still reporting symptoms of neurological damage despite having discontinued the drugs, Law360 reports.

It wasn’t until 2013 that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned that Levaquin and other fluoroquinolone drugs could cause severe nerve damage and required label updates, failing that previous cautions failed to fully inform doctors and patients of the risks, according to Law360.

In the suit, Farmer accuses Janssen, J&J and McKesson of negligently developing Levaquin, failing to warn users of its dangerous effects and knowingly placing the drug on the market despite its risks, then fraudulently concealing information about it from its users. The Plaintiff is seeking an unspecified amount of compensatory and punitive damages, Law360 reports.

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