Drug Safety Developments

Antidepressants linked to risk of brain bleeds

Quoted from http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/17/us-antidepressants-idUSBRE89G1PB20121017

Antidepressants linked to risk of brain bleeds

By Amy Norton

NEW YORK | Wed Oct 17, 2012 4:24pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People using a common class of antidepressants may have slightly increased odds of suffering bleeding in the brain - though the risk is still very small, researchers reported Wednesday.

The antidepressants are known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), and include widely used drugs like fluoxetine (Prozac), sertraline (Zoloft), citalopram (Celexa) and paroxetine (Paxil).

SSRIs have been linked to a risk of stomach bleeding. But studies have come to conflicting findings on whether SSRI users have any higher risk of hemorrhagic strokes, which happen when there is bleeding in or around the brain.

So for the new study, researchers pooled the findings from 16 past studies involving more than 500,000 people who were on SSRIs or not.

Overall, antidepressant users were about 40 to 50 percent more likely to suffer bleeding in or around the brain, the researchers report in the journal Neurology.

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Pfizer Seeks MDL for Zoloft Birth Defect Cases

Quoted from http://www.law.com/jsp/pa/PubArticlePA.jsp?id=1202539031562

Pfizer Seeks MDL for Zoloft Birth Defect Cases

Majority of Cases Were Filed in Pa. State Court, Removed to Eastern District

Amaris Elliott-EngelThe Legal Intelligencer

January 20, 2012

Mark S. Cheffo
Photo by Rick Kopstein

 

In the latest volley by pharmaceutical defendants seeking alternative forums to Pennsylvania state court, drugmaker Pfizer on Wednesday asked that almost 50 cases that have been removed to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania be consolidated into one multidistrict litigation.

Pfizer counsel Mark S. Cheffo and Katherine Armstrong of Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom in New York filed a motion with the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation to consolidate 59 cases filed in Pennsylvania, New York, Illinois, Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio for pretrial proceedings.

The plaintiffs allege that birth defects were caused in children whose mothers took Zoloft during their pregnancies, according to court papers.

[Article continues at original source]