Poll: Should I sue?

[SonicWaffle]

Typically I don't believe in law suits of the sueing nature unless one party causes harm to another. With that said I believe you should only ask for a reasonable pay back and not some b.s. sum of money. I don't know you or how much distress you were under, but you don't deserve to become a millionaire over some horrible shits. You should however be given some money for being tricked by some of the most evil individuals on the face of this Earth. I'm looking at you pharmaceutical companies.

I'm not asking for millions. The guy who got $10,000,000 was taking the piss IMHO. having a camera shoved up your rectum is fairly traumatic, on the other hand ;-)

Then again, I'm only human, and if a judge said to you "Here, have ten million", could you really say no?

 

[SomeUnregPunk]

Well the fact is in some cases you're expected to read the pamphlet that comes with drugs so again if one of the stated side effects is this then you most likely have no case.

And I can't say this often enough. Everyone should talk to a pharmacist before taking a new drug. I don't care how "safe" or "weak" or "over the counter" the drug is. The fact is drugs can have dangerous side effects when taken with other drugs.

Example would be a natural herbal balm that's sold in many pharmacies that reduces the effectiveness of many birth control pills.

It was not mentioned in the pamphlet. After diagnosis, I was informed by doctors that they think about 1 in every 10,000 patients who use accutane/isotretinoin can develop this sort of illness. I did in fact thoroughly discuss side effects with my doctor, because he told me I was unable to drink much alcohol while I took it and I wanted to be certain of exactly how much was safe to consume.

I've also got medical opinions from three or four doctors, obviously I haven't asked them for a copy but all the relevant details should be in my file.

finally, awesome avatar. Hogfather?

standard practice for all pharm companies is to keep a stash of money set aside for that small percentage of people that get hurt by their products. Because it is cheaper for them to pay a victim off then to put in the larger sums of cash to make their drug safer.

It is practically a billion dollar business just to make drugs. If you ran a company and found out a small percent of people were hurt by your drug, would you rather keep a few million set aside for those lawsuits or pour another billion into making that drug safer or create alternatives?

 

[cuddly_tomato]

Sue the arses off them. That is what I would do. It sounds like you have things pretty bad at the moment Sonic, my sincerest hope things improve for you soon.

 

[Darkwolf9]

Typically I don't believe in law suits of the sueing nature unless one party causes harm to another. With that said I believe you should only ask for a reasonable pay back and not some b.s. sum of money. I don't know you or how much distress you were under, but you don't deserve to become a millionaire over some horrible shits. You should however be given some money for being tricked by some of the most evil individuals on the face of this Earth. I'm looking at you pharmaceutical companies.

I'm not asking for millions. The guy who got $10,000,000 was taking the piss IMHO. having a camera shoved up your rectum is fairly traumatic, on the other hand ;-)

Then again, I'm only human, and if a judge said to you "Here, have ten million", could you really say no?

No I wouldn't mainly because I can't stand pharmaceutical companies. I wasn't knocking you either. I'd sue as well. What I meant was that I don't believe people should sue for outrageous amounts of money, but that's my personal belief. If you can and get away with in this case more power to you. I'm just tired of how people take advantage of our broke system in order to get more money than they deserve. In this case I believe you're in the right, because more than likely they knew there was a chance this would happen but decided to go with it anyway. These companies work the same way vehicle companies do. If they can make more money selling the product up front then they will shelling out money for a recall and being sued they totally will. Ford did and now pharmaceutical companies do too. Good luck dude.

 

[SonicWaffle]

Sue the arses off them. That is what I would do. It sounds like you have things pretty bad at the moment Sonic, my sincerest hope things improve for you soon.

Thanks mate

I hope they do too, but UC seems to have a sliding scale of seriousness. My friends dad has it and it only comes on at random times. A woman I know whose husband has it can have serious flare-ups and has to have annual colonoscopies. Fuck. That.

 

[Plurralbles]

ddamnit, a legitimate reason to invoke the scum of the earth: Lawyers.

Edit: tHat bring sup a good point from me, remember, to sue you need to be respresented, which those trash scrape a pretty penny off of waht you get.

 

[ma55ter_fett]

Yes! without even reading the OP this would still have been my advice, why? because I live in america where sueing is the second best way to get rich, first best is being born rich.

What the hell sue em for all they got.

 

[pffh]

Well the fact is in some cases you're expected to read the pamphlet that comes with drugs so again if one of the stated side effects is this then you most likely have no case.

And I can't say this often enough. Everyone should talk to a pharmacist before taking a new drug. I don't care how "safe" or "weak" or "over the counter" the drug is. The fact is drugs can have dangerous side effects when taken with other drugs.

Example would be a natural herbal balm that's sold in many pharmacies that reduces the effectiveness of many birth control pills.

It was not mentioned in the pamphlet. After diagnosis, I was informed by doctors that they think about 1 in every 10,000 patients who use accutane/isotretinoin can develop this sort of illness. I did in fact thoroughly discuss side effects with my doctor, because he told me I was unable to drink much alcohol while I took it and I wanted to be certain of exactly how much was safe to consume.

I've also got medical opinions from three or four doctors, obviously I haven't asked them for a copy but all the relevant details should be in my file.

finally, awesome avatar. Hogfather?

standard practice for all pharm companies is to keep a stash of money set aside for that small percentage of people that get hurt by their products. Because it is cheaper for them to pay a victim off then to put in the larger sums of cash to make their drug safer.

It is practically a billion dollar business just to make drugs. If you ran a company and found out a small percent of people were hurt by your drug, would you rather keep a few million set aside for those lawsuits or pour another billion into making that drug safer or create alternatives?

Erm actually there are quite strict organizations with the sole purpose of watching drug companies. There is a reason why side effect lists are so bloody long drug companies DO spend a huge amount of money researching what could go wrong with their drugs and if a new thing is discovered after the drug is released that thing is added to the side effect list.

But yes it's true that many companies keep a stash of money to pay off lawsuits, but that's because huge lawsuits are PR nightmares and not because the companies are EVUL and want to eat your babies rather then make the drugs safer.

Unsafe drugs are NOT profitable.

 

[Jamash]

If I was in your situation, I'd join a Class Action Lawsuit but I wouldn't attempt to take on BigPharma as an individual.

 

[Sporky111]

I'm not any authority on the law, but I'd say you're on a fairly stable platform to sue. And don't think that a lawsuit is a bad thing. If you've been legitimately wronged and deserve compensation, nobody will fault you for it. However, if you really haven't been wronged and/or you sue for a ridiculously large amount of money, then people will make you into the "bad guy".

 

[SonicWaffle]

Do they state that this can happen in the side effect list? If no then yes sue if yes then:
Talk to a pharmacist (should be free and available in every pharmacy) and/or a doctor and try to figure out why you had the bad reaction and from there decide if you have ground for a lawsuit since usually if it's in the side effects list then you won't win.

And to prevent anything like that from happening again ALWAYS talk to a pharmacist before taking a new drug to see if it functions weirdly with any other drug or ointment or whatever you're already taking.

Also:

try google some natural treatments not drugs but, dont sue.but take a small dose of the medciation.try find a pro docter like a buddhist one. one of them cured a samll pain in my gut that caused me a lot of diarrhea, gon off my food, and can barely move.

Don't do that, if there is one thing I hate then that's homeopathic "medicine" since that's just bullshit and anytime it "works" it's only because of the placebo effect.

I i didn'y say homeopathic. i said docters taht give orgainic/ natural treatments.

BAAAAAAAAAAN!

Ban the guy for having his own opinions? He doesn't seem to have offended anyone, even though I don't agree with him...

 

[PapaJupe]

Brother, the idiot trying to sue Gamestop because he bought a used copy Dragon Age and did not get the free DLC is being frivolous.
You sir, are not.

 

[Valksy]

Yes, I think you should investigate your options for making some sort of claim.

When it comes to frivolous law suits I tend to think more in terms of people spilling coffee on themselves and then suing because it is hot. What you have from wikipedia looks most painful and upsetting and if there is a proven correlation then I would hope you have a decent case (of course when I say "case" it is unlikely that you would ever see a court room as pay-offs are cheaper).

I don't believe you are being a leech at all and don't think that pharma companies need treating with kid gloves.

Best of luck.

 

[FaithorFire]

I think even Sexual Harassment Panda would agree that this particular case is NOT frivolous. And if it is a class action suit, join in, get what you need to get better.

 

[Therumancer]

So, today my girlfriend alerted me to a recall of a medicine called Accutane, also known as Isotretinoin - link here, apologies for the fact it's a "how to claim" site but they're filling up Google currently;

http://www.accutaneclaimcenter.org/

It's common usage is for the treatment of severe acne. I took the medicine for over three months last year, before I had to stop due to developing Ulcerative Colitis. If you don't know what that is, check wikipedia, but if you want to avoid throwing up then don't look at the picture.

Boiled down to the basics, bowel ulcers. Crapping blood, constant pain, never being able to go more than five minutes away from a toilet...not fun. I also had to undergo two colonoscopies, they involve putting a camera somewhere that a camera should never go which frankly causes a lot of distress. After stopping taking the drug and starting an intensive course of anti-inflammatories, steroids (to counter the side effects of the anti-inflammatories) and calcium tablets (to counter the side effects of the steroids) the UC cleared up, and at my final outpatients appointment the doctor told me that I didn't actually have Ulcerative Colitis; that I had merely had a bad reaction to the Isotretinoin. Unfortunately, in the three weeks or so since I stopped taking the medication, the UC has resurfaced and is making life very unpleasant again.

Now, I'm in somewhat of a dilemma. My girlfriend, family and friends are encouraging me to try and get some compensation. However, ever since I first saw the South Park episode with Sexual Harassment Panda I've held dear his latter motto, that "frivolous lawsuits damage society". On the one hand, I really don't want to be the kind of guy who sues people. On the other, there is a chance that I'll be shitting blood for the rest of my life.

What do I do? Does this count as a frivolous lawsuit or do you guys think I'm entitled to something?

I'd go after them for compensation based on your medical bills and the time you were out of commission, plus legal fees of course. Punitive damages are something else entirely, and I guess that comes down to how much you feel you suffered, chances are if your thinking the way you do it couldn't have been too much.

This seems pretty straightforward and reasonable, not frivolous at all. You were actually hurt and if your literal about your forced bathroom habits this wasn't a minor thing.

 

[SonicWaffle]

Brother, the idiot trying to sue Gamestop because he bought a used copy Dragon Age and did not get the free DLC is being frivolous.
You sir, are not.

Interestingly, on that subject, I bought Mass Effect 2 today at my local Game. The guy behind the counter rung it up at £40, stopped, and said "Actually we have a pre-owned copy of this for £30, why not buy that instead?"

I pointed out to him the issue about free DLC, so he hunted around until he found a pre-owned copy with the one-use-only code included. He actually wrote on my receipt that if the code had already been used, I could bring the pre-owned copy back and trade it in for a full-price copy and they'd only charge me the £10 difference. Cool, cool guy.

 

[BGH122]

Do they state that this can happen in the side effect list? If no then yes sue if yes then:
Talk to a pharmacist (should be free and available in every pharmacy) and/or a doctor and try to figure out why you had the bad reaction and from there decide if you have ground for a lawsuit since usually if it's in the side effects list then you won't win.

And to prevent anything like that from happening again ALWAYS talk to a pharmacist before taking a new drug to see if it functions weirdly with any other drug or ointment or whatever you're already taking.

Also:

try google some natural treatments not drugs but, dont sue.but take a small dose of the medciation.try find a pro docter like a buddhist one. one of them cured a samll pain in my gut that caused me a lot of diarrhea, gon off my food, and can barely move.

Don't do that, if there is one thing I hate then that's homeopathic "medicine" since that's just bullshit and anytime it "works" it's only because of the placebo effect.

Spot on.

I won't go into a long rant here about the infuriating misuse of the term 'natural' (Skeptoid has free podcasts dedicated to the subject), but to draw an illusionary dichotomy between traditional Western medicine and 'natural' medicine shows that the speaker either does not understand what is meant by the terms used therein or is deliberately lying. Not to get too specific, but everything is a collection of chemicals. 'Natural' herbal compounds tend to have positive properties, but negative or useless properties too since they weren't specially developed for human medical use. What medicine does and has done in the case of effective herbal remedies is isolate which compounds are causing the positive effect and find a way to prescribe only these positive effects, usually by creating drugs which have a lot less of the junk effects found in herbal remedies. Homeopathy, however, is neither of the aforementioned; it is just water and sugar. Seriously, check it.

OP: Were I you I would go and see the original medical professional who prescribed these drugs to you and ask him why he did it. It will come up in court anyway, if it goes that far. Keep in mind that if, with the information he had at the tame, his diagnosis and course of medication was the best that he could have possibly given you the lawsuit will turn against you regardless of how the course of treatment turned out.

There's also an ethical matter to consider here. Presuming you did not pay for his services, he has attempted to help and, even though he failed, it does not sound like he behaved in a pernicious way. You have not been exploited nor deliberately mistreated, so, to me at least, I would really have to consider whether it is worth potentially putting a person who will, over the course of his career, save lives out of business simply due to the way things have panned out.

 

[Gigano]

I'm not entirely sure if it's possible to sue for something like this. In some legal systems (the Danish one at least), damage which could not be foreseen by the best professionals at the time of release and subsequent use cannot receive compensation, as there's no culpability. If it's the same in the UK (which I have no idea about), then your claim would hinge on the medical scientific knowlegde available when you took the pills: if it's a completely unexpected or unknown danger/side effect (which do in fact happen in rare instances, I've read a few cases), there may not be culpability, which is usually a requirement for compensation.

Also, check out if the government haven't set aside an "public insurance" by law for this kind of medicinal damages from which one can receive compensation regardless of culpability.

I'd say it was a case worth looking into. Aren't there law student legal aid societies providing free legal assesments in the UK as well? That might be a good way to start.

 

[SonicWaffle]

OP: Were I you I would go and see the original medical professional who prescribed these drugs to you and ask him why he did it. It will come up in court anyway, if it goes that far. Keep in mind that if, with the information he had at the tame, his diagnosis and course of medication was the best that he could have possibly given you the lawsuit will turn against you regardless of how the course of treatment turned out.

There's also an ethical matter to consider here. Presuming you did not pay for his services, he has attempted to help and, even though he failed, it does not sound like he behaved in a pernicious way. You have not been exploited nor deliberately mistreated, so, to me at least, I would really have to consider whether it is worth potentially putting a person who will, over the course of his career, save lives out of business simply due to the way things have panned out.

You make good points, but there are a few things to consider. For one, the doctor who prescribed me the drugs in the first place is a dermatologist, and unlikely to save many lives. Makes him no less worthy, though.

Second, he has since prescribed me a couple of creams to use on the acne which work very well. I'm not sure why he didn't do that from the start, as surely a cream is better than a drug treatment in most cases?

Third, I'm not blaming him. I'm blaming the corporation who, despite being aware of the dangers (how could they not be?) still continued to sell the drug. The guy was trying to help, I don't blame him, and I wouldn't sue him.