Seroquel and Diabetes: MD experts weigh in
dpriver
looking for clients to sue drug company about this unproven link.
Thought you might like to see this article. It implies dubious MD
testimony.
DP
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[March 11, 2009 Pharmola.com] The Associated Press reports that
AstraZeneca is claiming that a Kansas woman's diabetes was caused by
"slurpies...McDonald's, Burger Kind and [a] lot of chinese food,"
despite the findings of medical experts that it was brought on by the
anti-psychotic medication Seroquel. This could be the first Seroquel
case to go to a jury. More to come.
AstraZeneca Denies Findings of Experts in
Seroquel/Diabetes Lawsuit
MARCH 10, 2009 WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) - Attorneys for drugmaker
AstraZeneca are challenging the findings of medical experts who claim
the company's anti-psychotic drug Seroquel causes diabetes.
A Delaware judge began three days of hearings Tuesday to determine
whether to allow testimony from three doctors in a case brought by a
Kansas woman who claims that Seroquel caused her to develop diabetes.
Attorneys for AstraZeneca argued that the reports submitted by the
medical experts are scientifically and legally insufficient to justify
Nina Scaife's claims.
But attorneys for Scaife contend that their expert witnesses are
qualified to testify, and that their opinions are supported by
scientific literature.
"This is a drug that has been generally accepted to cause this
problem," said Paul Pennock, an attorney for Scaife. "The acceptance
comes from extensive peer-reviewed literature."
A ruling in favor of AstraZeneca could avert a trial, which is
scheduled to start June 29 and which could be the first Seroquel
lawsuit in the country to be presented to a jury.
Earlier this year, a federal judge in Florida presiding over a
consolidated case involving thousands of Seroquel lawsuits filed in
federal courts granted summary judgment to AstraZeneca in two of the
multi-district litigation cases. The judge ruled that, under Florida
law, the plaintiffs' experts had failed to establish triable issues
regarding a specific causal link between Seroquel and diabetes.
Attorneys for AstraZeneca are hoping for a similar result in Delaware,
one of at least three jurisdictions, along with New York and New
Jersey, where Seroquel lawsuits have been filed in state courts.
Jane Thorpe, an attorney for AstraZeneca, told Superior Court Judge
Joseph Slights III that if he determines that the specific causation
testimony of endocrinologist Dr. Valerie Peck is inadmissible, then he
should grant summary judgment for AstraZeneca.
"The plaintiff has to prove causation, ... and she has to prove it
with expert testimony," Thorpe said, adding that Scaife's experts were
relying on "cherry-picked data."
The other experts seeking to offer general causation testimony on
behalf of Scaife are psychiatrist Igor Galynker and endocrinologist
Leonid Poretsky, both faculty members at Albert Einstein College of
Medicine in New York.
According to AstraZeneca, the fact that Scaife was not diagnosed with
diabetes until after she took Seroquel involves nothing more than a
temporal relationship that is insufficient to support a causation
argument.
Thorpe noted that Scaife, who is black, had several risk factors for
diabetes before taking Seroquel, including obesity, race, a family
history of diabetes, and a history of hypertension and cigarette
smoking.
"She is a person who has been struggling with obesity much of her
life," said Thorpe, noting that Scaife already was insulin resistant
because of her obesity before she began to take Seroquel.
In a brief supporting their motion for summary judgment, AstraZeneca
lawyers noted that Scaife testified in a deposition that, "until
recently, her diet consisted of slurpies and donuts, fish and fries
from McDonald's and Burger King, and '(a) lot of Chinese food.'"
But according to plaintiffs' lawyers who recently released court
documents previously sealed in the federal litigation, internal
AstraZeneca reports and e-mails by company officials suggest that they
knew a decade ago that Seroquel caused diabetes and major weight gain.
AstraZeneca officials have accused the plaintiffs' lawyers of
"mischaracterizing" what the company knew. They maintain that the drug
has been sold with adequate warnings based on available data.
Attorneys for both sides in the Delaware lawsuit noted conflicting
results from epidemiological studies to determine whether taking
Seroquel results in statistically significant risk of developing
diabetes. Pennock told the judge that the court is not in the position
to decide which body of literature is better, but only whether the
literature supporting the plaintiff's experts is "compelling."
"They are indeed grounding themselves in the methods and procedures of
science," said Pennock, rejecting AstraZeneca's claim that the
plaintiff's experts instead were engaging in "litigation-driven
advocacy."