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Video Transcript
Hello, this is Darrell Castle and I’m an attorney licensed to practice law here in the state of Tennessee and on this video today, I’m talking about Actos.
Actos is a drug made by a company called Takeda. That’s a Japanese company, but they have an American partner named Eli Lilly. Actos is a drug that is normally prescribed for Type 2 diabetes and has been associated with bladder cancer in some people.
In fact, there was a case decided a couple of weeks ago in Lafeyette, Louisianna – the first trial here against Actos in the United States. The jury in that case came to believe there was a cause of connection between Actos and bladder cancer. Futhermore, they believe Takeda, the company that makes Actos, had hid the fact from plaintiffs – from people actually taking it and from doctors prescribing this drug – had hidden this fact and that they knew in advance this drug caused bladder cancer. They knew before they even started selling it in the United States that it caused bladder cancer. This is what the jury came to believe.
They gave the plaintiff in that case $1.5 million in compensatory damages, meaning damage that he suffered from taking Actos like pain and suffering and so forth – damage that comes from developing bladder cancer.
And they gave $9 billion in punitive damages – assigned $6 billion to Takeda and $3 billion to Eli Lilly. But the fact is, that reward will never be paid, so don’t get too excited about it. The Supreme Court here in the United States has ruled in prior cases that punitive damages have to be in line with the actual underlying compensatory damages. In-line is usually defined as being 10 times or less, so 10 times $1.5 million is still a very nice reward.
The point is, the jury in this case was trying to get the attention of the manufacturer that makes Actos and right now I’m trying to get your attention by telling you that if you have taken Actos for Type 2 diabetes and have developed bladder cancer, then time is running out for you. Right now this litigation is pretty far advanced, but there is still time, and I would recommend that you see somebody about that right away.