Advair® Lawsuit
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An Advair® lawsuit may be filed on behalf of anyone who has suffered serious injury or death as a result of Advair® side effects. Advair®, produced by pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, was approved by the FDA to treat asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in 2000. It is estimated that 49 million Americans currently suffer from one of the lung conditions for which Advair® is prescribed. Between July 2004 and July 2005 alone, over 17 million prescriptions of Advair® were written for patient use.
Advair® combines two active ingredients that help to prevent, though not cure, asthma symptoms like shortness of breath, chest tightness, and cough caused by bronchoconstriction and inflammation of the airways. It also relaxes the irritated and restricted airways in patients with COPD. The first active ingredient in Advair®, fluticasone, is a steroid drug that acts to reduce inflammation. The other active drug in Advair® is salmeterol, a beta-2 agonist used for long-term dilation of the airways.
An Advair® lawsuit may be appropriate for patients who have been injured by the side effects caused by the salmeterol medication in Advair®. Both Advair® and a similar drug called Serevent (also made by GlaxoSmithKline) contain this long acting bronchodilator, which has been linked to several deaths and serious injuries.
The 28 week long SMART (salmeterol multi-center asthma research trial) was conducted in 1996 to measure the effects of Serevent against a placebo. Of the 13,179 people using the salmeterol drug, thirteen suffered fatal asthma attacks brought on by the medication itself. For comparison, three out of the 13,176 people taking placebos died during the SMART. The risk of suffering a fatal asthma attack from salmeterol drug use was found to be even greater in the African American population.
Because Advair® also contains salmeterol, the results of this clinical trial have been applied to both Serevent and Advair®. In August 2003, the FDA ordered the addition of a black box warning on all Advair® and Serevent product information. This strong warning informs patients about the rare, but significant, risk of suffering a fatal asthma attack while taking these medications.
In July 2005, an FDA advisory panel composed of 14 lung experts was convened to evaluate the safety of these asthma and COPD treatments. These experts voted unanimously to keep these drugs on the market because they believe the benefits of such drugs outweigh their risks.
If you have been injured by Advair® use, you have the legal right to seek compensation for your losses and suffering. If you would like to learn more about your legal rights and options in an Advair® lawsuit, please contact us to speak with a qualified and experienced attorney in your area.
