Boston Personal Injury Attorney Blog

July 5, 2013

Boston Bicycle Riders are a Diverse Group – Summer Bike Accident Prevention Important

Recently, the Boston Globe addressed the so-called “image problem,” of Boston’s bicycling community.

According to the Globe article, many people incorrectly assume that Boston bicycle riders are all either hipsters and/or white, wealthy and middle aged. This image problem and the stereotype of bicycle riders has, according to the Globe, made it more difficult to make improving bicycle safety into an important political issue.

Our Boston bike accident lawyers know that improving bicycle safety is good for everyone throughout the city. By recognizing that bike riders are a diverse group and that improved safety measures can benefit everyone, hopefully lawmakers and local politicians will be able to make safety initiatives more of a priority. This is especially important as prime bicycling season is underway during the summer and everyone – drivers and cyclists alike- need to make a serious effort to be safe when sharing the roads.

Boston Bicycling Community is a Diverse Group

The perception of bicycle riders as hipsters or as wealthy white people has become so entrenched that there is even an acronym: MAMILS, which stands for middle-aged men in Lycra. The cyclist stereotyping has caused many, including some local politicians, to view bicycle safety issues as affecting only a small minority of local area residents. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that those individuals most vocal on bike lanes and bike safety programs tend to fit the stereotype of the rich middle-aged rider.

In reality, however, the Boston Globe indicates that bicycle riders are very diverse and that many people ride bikes as a matter of necessity. In fact, studies have shown that cycling is a growing method of transportation among both racial and ethnic minorities. Lower income individuals who are unable to afford the costs associated with a car also use bicycle riding as their means of getting to work and running essential errands.

This trend towards an increasingly diverse group of bikers isn’t isolated to Boston either. In 2011, for example, a Rutgers University study revealed that minorities are making up an ever-increasing share of bicycle riders throughout North America. In 2001, African American, Hispanic and Asian people made only 16 percent of cycling trips but in 2009, individuals within these ethnic groups accounted for 23 percent of rides. Yet, many of the minorities who are increasingly riding bikes do not tend to attend events organized by pro-cycling advocates.

Some Boston lawmakers believe that an important opportunity is missed by failing to engage all bicycle riders, including minority riders who may not traditionally speak out in favor of improved bike safety measures. By raising more awareness of safety issues and of the diversity of bicycle riders, bike safety can become a more popular cause and more politicians may be willing to take real action to improve conditions for cyclists in Boston. This would be good for all riders, especially as adults and kids take to the roads on their bikes for fun or pleasure this summer and beyond.
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July 1, 2013

Johnson & Johnson Tries to Block Experts in DePuy Hip Implant Cases

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

DePuy hip implant devices are one of several brands of metal-on-metal hip implants that have proved to be dangerous to patients. DePuy Orthopaedics, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, is currently defending itself against a number of lawsuits from patients harmed by their defective hip replacement and hip implant products. Recently, Harris Martin reported that the company asked the court in one of those cases to prevent two experts from testifying.

Our Boston DePuy injury attorneys know that DePuy lost a past case when an injured plaintiff was awarded $8.3 million in damages. The company is likely trying to prevent future large verdicts. The motion to the court to keep these two experts from testifying in the case is just another attempt to escape liability for the defective metal-on-metal devices.

DePuy Orthopaedics Seeks to Block Expert Testimony

The case against DePuy Orthopaedics is a product liability case and the plaintiffs have the burden of showing that the metal-on-metal hip implant products were dangerous and failed to live up to the promises made by the manufacturer. The plaintiffs do not need to demonstrate that DePuy Orthopaedics was negligent in not producing a safer product since strict liability rules apply. Experts have testified in past cases that the problems with DePuy’s products were well-known before the medical devices even came onto the market.

One of the two expert witnesses, a professor of biomedical engineering and surgery at McGill University, testified at a previous DePuy trial that the rate of adverse events associated with the metal-on-metal hip implants produced by DePuy should have caused alarm and raised “red flags” as far back as 2003. This was before the DePuy hip implants were even released on the market. The other expert criticized DePuy’s effect analysis and the company’s failure mode.

DePuy is likely seeking to prevent these two expert witnesses from testifying because it believes that the evidence presented significantly damages the defense case. DePuy is trying to prevent the testimony from being presented during a multi-district litigation and submitted supporting briefs barring the testimony on June 14, 2013.

The judge will now need to make a decision on whether these experts should be permitted to testify in the upcoming bellwether trial in September. If the judge permits the experts to testify, then it is likely that the information presented will once again be damaging to DePuy Orthopaedic’s case. Both DePuy Orthopaedics and the plaintiffs who wish to present testimony from the experts will have a chance to make arguments to the judge about whether the testimony should be allowed.

Determining what evidence is or is not admissible in a case against a drug manufacturer can be a complex and technical process. Responding to actions such as this one is just one of the many tasks that attorneys will do to help victims of defective metal-on-metal hip implants to get the justice they deserve.
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June 30, 2013

Transvaginal Mesh Supplier May Have Used Plastic Not Suitable For Human Implantation

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

For women suffering from pelvic organ prolapse or stress urinary incontinence, transvaginal mesh manufacturers promised surgical solutions that would help to correct their health issues. Unfortunately, transvaginal mesh or TVM turned out to be a very dangerous product that caused a number of complications including significant pain; recurrent prolapse and breakdown of the mesh in the body.

Since transvaginal mesh not only failed to perform as promised but also caused harm, many patients have taken action against TVM manufacturers. In one lawsuit against a TVM manufacturer, plaintiffs are alleging that the manufacturer knowingly used a plastic that was not safe for use in people. Our Boston transvaginal mesh lawyers know that TVM from all manufacturers has generally proved to be dangerous. However, this new evidence indicates that at least one manufacturer may have gone beyond simply failing to disclose risks and instead intentionally acted in a way likely to cause harm.

Emails Show Transvaginal Mesh Manufacturers Intentionally Put Patients at Risk

According to a June 26 Bloomberg news article, CR Bard may have knowingly sold vaginal mesh devices that were made of a plastic material manufacturers had warned was not suitable for implantation in humans.

The plastic was made by a Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. unit and was resin-based. Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. had registered a warning that the mesh should not be permanently implanted in people and after this warning was issued, managers at Bard’s Davol unit knowingly used the plastic in mesh units intended for the treatment of hernias. Now, plaintiffs in a transvaginal mesh claim contend that this same unsafe mesh was also used not just in hernia products but in transvaginal mesh products as well.

Evidence indicates that CR Bard Inc. acted intentionally to use this unsafe plastic, rather than just simply using it by mistake. For example, two emails were sent in 2004 and in 2007 by Davol executives warning colleagues not to tell Chevron Phillips or other manufacturers of the resin-plastic that the plastics were being used in medical devices that were placed in people.

One of the e-mails sent by a top Bard executive, who is now a vice president at the company, expressly cautioned that Chevron Phillips would probably “not be interested in a medical application due to product liability concerns.” The same email indicated that Davol shouldn’t be mentioned to any of the manufacturers because the manufacturers likely were unaware of C.R. Bard’s implant applications.

These emails are extremely incriminating because they can be used to demonstrate that top executives in the company knowingly made the decision to use a plastic that was proven unsafe, despite an awareness that people could get hurt.

It is not unreasonable to believe that the same plastic was used not just in mesh used to treat hernia injuries but also in patients undergoing surgical procedures with transvaginal mesh. Plaintiffs in TVM cases may thus be able to use the emails to strengthen their claim against the medical device company, by presenting the emails as proof that Bard intentionally took dangerous risks with patient health.
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June 28, 2013

New England Fireworks Injuries a Risk Through Fourth of July Holiday

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

State Fire Marshal Stephen D. Coan asks residents and visitors of Massachusetts to set a good example for your children and leave the fireworks to the professionals.

Our Boston personal injury attorneys are urging you to enjoy the many displays of fireworks supervised by local fire departments and conducted by licensed professionals instead of attempting to put on your own shows.

If you chose to have some fun at home, it’s important to make sure that the fireworks you’ve got are legal in the state.

“While fireworks may be purchased legally in other states, it is illegal to bring them into or through Massachusetts,” said State Fire Stephen D. Coan.

In the state of Massachusetts, firecrackers, torpedoes, skyrockets, flares, candles, bombs, wheels, colored fire, fountains, mines, and serpents are all illegal.

Sparklers are still legal though. But remember that they can still be dangerous.

Sparklers light up your Fourth of July with their crackling glow and glowing trail of light. Kids of all ages are in awe of the sparks that fly around Fourth of July celebrations, but these devices are merely wire sticks that are dipped in a mixture of metals and chemicals and set on fire.

Doesn’t sound too safe, does it?

Remember that these pretty little devices can also heat up to nearly 2,000 degrees.

It’s easy for parents to believe that sparklers are safer that ordinary fireworks, but the truth of the matter is that they’re just as dangerous and it’s time to stop overlooking the dangers.

According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), close to 20 percent of all firework-related injuries are actually the result of sparklers. Young children account for a majority of these incidents, too.

Before handing a sparkler to a child or someone else in your family, read over these safety tips and be on your best behavior:

-You never want to hand over a lighted sparkler to another person. Make sure that you give then one that’s not been lit let. If you’re letting a child hold one, make sure that an adult light it.

-Only use one sparkler at a time. You don’t want to intensify the dangers by adding more in the mix.

-Remember that fireworks are still hot long after they’ve gone out. When they go out, confiscate them from children and place them directly into a bucket of water or under a running hose.

-Never allow children to play with any kind of fireworks without the proper supervision of a competent adult.

-Only purchase sparklers from a reputable vendor.

Each year, there are about 200 people who wind up in an emergency room every day during the month around the Fourth of July. Don’t let it happen to you. Be safe and have fun out there. Happy Fourth of July!
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June 26, 2013

Transvaginal Mesh Company Pays $55.4 Million to Settle Some TVM Cases

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

According to Reuters, a unit of Endo Pharmaceuticals has recently agreed to pay out $54.5 million to settle just some of the thousands of lawsuits the company is facing over its transvaginal mesh surgical products.

Transvaginal mesh, or TVM as it is called, was used by patients worldwide as a method of treating pelvic organ prolapse and stress urinary incontinence. Our Boston transvaginal mesh lawyers know that the Endo Pharmaceuticals unit is just one of many manufacturers facing lawsuits and that this settlement is only just the beginning of the compensation that will need to be paid to the women whose health was adversely affected by dangerous mesh products.

Company Settles Without Admitting Fault
Reuters reported that the unit of Endo Pharmaceuticals paying out the $54.5 million settlement is called American Medical Systems. American Medical Systems disclosed this settlement payout in a regulatory filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday June 20th. The company did not indicate exactly how many cases it was resolving with the $54.5 million settlement agreement.

In settling the claims, American Medical Systems did not admit that the company was at fault or liable for the health problems that the women were facing. Transvaginal mesh has been linked to numerous medical issues including erosion of the mesh; significant pain; recurrent organ prolapse and other problems that normally necessitate at least one repeat surgery to correct. However, the company did not admit fault or liability for these symptoms or problems.

American Medical Systems has estimated in the past that it expects to spend at least $160 million to settle the vaginal mesh claims against the company. Other manufacturers that also made transvaginal mesh devices have their own lawsuits to resolve as well, so manufacturers throughout the United States will likely be paying many millions of dollars to compensate people whose lives they damaged through releasing an unsafe medical device.

FDA data shows that in 2010 alone, there were an estimated 300,000 women diagnosed with pelvic organ prolapse and around one out of every three of these women had a surgical procedure using transvaginal mesh. Another 260,000 women during the same year had surgery for stress urinary incontinence, around 80 percent of whom used transvaginal mesh.

The $54.5 million settlement from AMS is thus only the tip of the iceberg. Although the company has not admitted fault, its settling of the claims mean that the victims of its dangerous mesh devices will at least have their bills, costs and other losses covered. That the company is estimating paying out more in settlement money is a strong indicator that they believe a judge or jury would see a link between their products and the symptoms experienced by patients.

The company is likely to continue to be willing and eager to settle cases when possible in order to avoid claims going to court and juries rendering verdicts for plaintiffs who were harmed. Settlements allow injured victims to avoid having to go through the process of a trial in order to obtain monetary damages, but plaintiffs should speak to an attorney before accepting a settlement to ensure they are getting the full amount of compensation they deserve.
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June 24, 2013

Judge Upholds DePuy Verdict for Patient Injured by Metal-on-Metal Hip Implant

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

Thousands of patients throughout the United States are currently involved in litigation to hold DePuy Orthopaedics responsible for damages caused by the metal-on-metal hip implant devices manufactured by this Johnson & Johnson subsidiary. While some of these cases against DePuy Orthopaedics are just getting started, others have already been tried and decisions rendered.

Our Boston defective hip implant lawyers know that many of the cases have been successful for injured patients. In March of 2013, for example, a California man was awarded $8.34 million in damages due to injuries sustained after he had a DePuy ASR hip replacement device implanted. DePuy Orthopaedics appealed the decision that was made by the jury in that case, but a judge recently made the decision that the verdict would be upheld.

Judge Upholds Jury Verdict
Juries make decisions about whether a defendant is legally liable (legally responsible) for causing injuries and about the extent of the damages that the plaintiff endured. The damages can include medical expenses; lost income/missed work time; pain and suffering; emotional distress and other economic and non-economic losses. The damage award is a monetary award that is supposed to “make the plaintiff whole.”

In the recent DePuy case, the jury determined that the California plaintiff was entitled to $8.34 million in damages to fully compensate him for his losses. The injured plaintiff had underwent hip surgery in 2007 and subsequently experienced serious complications including metal toxicity, pain and walking problems.

After the jury awarded the plaintiff the multi-million dollar verdict, DePuy Orthopaedics asked the judge to grant a new trial or for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV). A JNOV would mean that the judge would say that the jury was wrong, that they made a decision that wasn’t supported by the law, and that a different ruling should be entered.

The judge, however, declined to either allow for a new trial or to grant a JNOV. Instead, the judge said that there was sufficient evidence that the jury could reasonably have concluded that the DePuy ASR product had a defect and that the medical device manufacturer failed to provide adequate information to patients about the risks of using the metal-on-metal hip replacement product.

The judge’s decision means that the verdict still stands, at least for now, against DePuy Orthopaedics. When the judge announced his decision, he also scheduled a hearing for later in the month to address the plaintiff’s request that the medical device company be responsible for paying $1.2 million in court costs and litigation expenses.

This is bad news for DePuy Orthopaedics not only because of the large damage award that the company is supposed to pay to the plaintiff, which could get larger if the judge determines that the company has to pay the plaintiff’s costs. It is also bad news because there are thousands of other lawsuits out there.

Since one jury has already found that DePuy was responsible for millions in injuries, there is a good chance that at least some of the other juries hearing DePuy cases will also find for the plaintiff and award compensation to those patients injured by the defective hip replacement devices.
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June 22, 2013

Update on New England Steroid Injection Bacteria Outbreak

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

Consumers, especially patients with medical conditions, are often in the position of blindly trusting their doctors, pharmacists, and the manufacturing companies that develop and distribute drugs. While most of the drugs on the market have been tested, there are always potential dangers. Since the outbreak of meningitis associated with steroid shots last year, the Food and Drug Administration has been scrutinizing the manufacturing plants of similar products.

The FDA is the federal agency responsible for ensuring that specific products, including over the counter drugs, prescriptions, and other food products, are safe for consumption. When reporting dangerous drugs or other contaminants, the FDA can recall those products temporarily or ban the products completely. Currently, the agency is investigating reports of bacteria found in the same steroid shots that caused a deadly outbreak of meningitis last year.

While the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention work to determine the newest species of fungus and bacteria, the victims have continued to suffer from adverse effects, including skin and soft tissue abscesses. Our Boston dangerous drug attorneys understand the gravity of injuries and are dedicated to helping victims protect their rights against large drug manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies.

The agency initiated the investigation after reports that the products were linked to infections. According to the FDA, the contaminants were found in sealed vials of steroids, which were produced and packaged by Main Street Pharmacy. The company has since recalled its products nationwide after 24 people developed abscesses at the site of their injections in Tennessee. Though meningitis has also been linked to the same injections, the FDA claims that there are no cases associated with the new site.

The injuries and consequences caused of the meningitis injections have been severe and widespread. According to the CDC, 58 people died and 745 other victims developed infections after receiving contaminated injections from the New England Compounding Center in Massachusetts. Overall, there have been over 300 cases involving abscesses or bacteria related infections caused by the drug.

The newest outbreak involves products that were distributed to 13 states. The federal agencies are continuing their investigation to determine if more patients are at risk. The agencies are particularly concerned about the injections since meningitis outbreak and have found that many of the manufacturing plants were in violation of regulations and operating under unsterile conditions.

To prevent additional injury and health risks, the FDA is requesting that health care providers and consumers report adverse consequences of drug use or any additional problems that could be associated to the Main Street products. If you or someone you love was injured or suffered because of a defective drug, you should report that injury to FDA’s MedWatch Adverse Event Reporting program.

The consequences of a dangerous or infected drug can cause significant and permanent health conditions and in some cases, death. Victims and their families in New England or nationwide may be entitled to significant compensation for those losses and should contact an experienced advocate who can initiate an immediate investigation.
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June 20, 2013

What You Need to Know About Swimming Pool Safety This Summer

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

Early this June, CBS Local reported that an 18-year-old girl was seriously injured in a swimming pool accident. The teen suffered a spinal injury, a fractured skull and a broken wrist. The teen also faces trespassing charges because she and a friend were allegedly “pool-hopping” at the time of the accident. Essentially, this means that the teens broke into someone’s back yard to go swimming. Unfortunately, they chose the backyard of someone whose pool had been emptied for repairs, which was how the 18-year-old was injured when she jumped in.

Our Boston accident attorneys know that swimming pool accidents are far-too-common over the summer months. While pool-hopping teens may not be a common occurrence, trespassers coming onto properties to use swimming pools occurs frequently through the hot summer months, and many of these trespassers are young children who could drown within minutes. Young kids are even at risk of drowning in swimming pools with parents in arm’s reach, since most people don’t really recognize the signs of drowning.

Keeping kids (and teens) safe from summer swimming pool accidents thus needs to be a joint-effort. Parents and caregivers should do their part by supervising their kids carefully, teaching their kids to swim and learning the signs of drowning. Pool owners need to carefully secure their swimming pools to ensure that kids don’t wander into the pool and lose their lives.

Protecting Kids from Swimming Pool Accidents

The homeowner of the pool where the 18-year-old kid was injured had done everything right to try to prevent accidents and trespassers. The homeowner was actually a building inspector for the town of Westford whose job it is to make sure pools are up-to-code. He had a six-foot privacy fence to block the view of the pool and a four-foot-tall chain link fence around the rest of the area.

While his fence did not keep the teens out because they were intent on trespassing, it would have kept out an average child wandering around the neighborhood.

Having a fence is so important that the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission recently issued a call-to-action encouraging homeowners to put a fence around all pools. The CPSC’s news release on the fence issue was sent out because the majority of kids who drown -390 each year on average- do so in backyard pools.

Having the pool fence can protect these young children and it also protects homeowners from being held legally liable for injuries that kids sustain.

Of course, while a fence can keep trespassing kids out, kids are also at risk when swimming with permission unless they are carefully supervised. Supervised mean not just keeping an eye on them, but also knowing how to recognize the signs of drowning.

Unfortunately, many believe that drowning involves flailing and splashing like they see in the movies. The reality, however, is very different. As a Slate article recently indicated, drowning doesn’t usually look like drowning because a drowning person cannot cry out for help or flail. A drowning person cannot cry out because he cannot breathe, and he cannot flail because his drowning mechanism will cause him to extend his arms laterally and press down on the water’s surface.

Actual signs of drowning thus include a mouth that sinks and reappears regularly; movements that look as if the drowning person is climbing a ladder; and having glassy, closed or unfocused eyes.

If homeowners put up fences and parents and caregivers learn the signs of drowning this summer, hopefully there will be fewer deadly or dangerous drowning accidents and kids will make it through the summer season OK.
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June 17, 2013

Boston Doctors Seeks to New Solutions To Traumatic Brain Injury Treatment

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

It is a long-standing and well-accepted rule that doctors need to obtain informed consent before providing treatment to patients. When a patient is unable to give his consent, family members or those with medical power of attorney need to be consulted. These rules exist to ensure that people understand the risks of receiving medical care and can make choices about how they want to handle their own health issues.

Unfortunately, our Boston brain injury attorneys know that patients who suffer some of the most severe injuries are not able to give informed consent when they need treatment. Those who are brought to the hospital after suffering head trauma from a car accident, slip and fall, work accident or other incident are often unconscious as a result of head injuries.

Because brain injuries often occur in trauma situations, patients may not have their family with them either. These brain injury victims need treatment right away to have the best chance of avoiding brain damage, but there is that issue of informed consent to think about.

Boston Doctors Seek New Solution for Brain Injury Patients

A group of Boston doctors is currently seeking permission to try out a new solution in treating brain injury patients. According to the Boston Globe, the doctors are hoping to join a national trial that is intended to assess the impact of administering the hormone progesterone to a brain injury patient in the hours immediately following the injury. Doctors want to be able to provide the hormone treatment to patients through injections that are given right away, entering them in the trial without waiting for informed consent.

This is a departure from the traditional rules associated both with providing medical care and with putting patients into clinical trials. Usually, patients need to be told of the risks of participating in trials or studies and need to be given the chance to refuse enrollment. However, because doctors in this clinical trial would be giving the hormone injections right away to unconscious patients, there generally would be no chance to say no.

If the Boston doctors are given permission to enter into the study, this would be the first time that an exemption was made at a Boston hospital on the issue of informed consent since the FDA created rules in 1996 allowing such exemptions. The law permits exemptions in situations where emergency care is necessary.

When a brain injury occurs, every second counts when it comes to treatment because a “secondary cascade” of harm occurs to the brain after the initial trauma. The secondary cascade refers to the fact that swelling, metabolic changes and fluid build-up can result in cells continuing to die until the brain is stabilized. The more cell death that occurs, the more cognitive and neurological impairments a patient experiences. The cell death is permanent and cannot be cured or reversed, so the only hope for staving off serious brain damage in head trauma cases is prompt treatment.

The hope is that the progesterone will be effective at stopping the secondary cascade of injuries if administered promptly after the trauma because the progesterone can stop cell death. If the doctors at Boston-area hospitals are allowed to go forward and enter the trial to study the effects of progesterone on brain injury patients right after a trauma, patients will have a reason to hope that brain injury treatment will be more effective at preventing permanent harm.
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June 13, 2013

Preventing Injury Caused by Dangerous Drug Interactions

by Jeffrey S. Glassman

Patients who take regular medications or multiple medications are at risk of injury caused by dangerous drugs. According to some health and medical experts, there are some ways you can help to avoid the consequences of dangerous drugs or dangerous drug interactions. Our Boston injury attorneys are experienced in these medical-legal cases and are dedicated to helping patients protect themselves and their loved ones from medical negligence.

According to statistics, the average American fills approximately 12 prescriptions per year. This creates significant opportunities for prescription errors including wrong medication, overdose, or dangerous mixing of drugs. While doctors, pharmacists, manufacturers and other medical professionals should be held accountable for dangerous drugs and injuries, there are some steps a consumer can take to avoid injures.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has reported that more than 77,000 injuries and death occur every year as a result of drug related events. Consumers and patients who understand the risks can take steps to reduce the chance of drug injuries and fatalities. The Food and Drug Administration has indicated that there are three main drug interactions: drug-food interactions, drug-condition interactions, and drug-drug interactions.

Drug-food interactions may result in dangerous side effects, such as when a drug is mixed with alcohol. Drug-condition interactions may have dangerous consequences if a doctor prescribes a drug without knowing a full medical history and other conditions that could be impacted by the use of a drug. Mixing two drugs or drug-drug interactions can be dangerous or fatal.

As a consumer, you should be aware of these various kinds of drug interactions. Pharmacists have offered the following tips to help you avoid some interactions and keep your family safe:

1) Stick with a regular pharmacy. Choosing one pharmacy and picking up all of your prescriptions can reduce the possibility of error and ensure that your pharmacist has a full record of your prior health conditions or other medications. When you see a regular pharmacist your doctor can also check for any risk of drug interactions.

2) Communicate regularly with your doctor. If you have a new or resurfacing health condition, always make changes known to your doctor. Your primary physician as well as any specialists you are seeing should have a list of your conditions and prescription medication. You should also indicate whether you are taking supplements and over the counter medication. Always ask questions if you have dietary restrictions, habits, or a history of food-drug interactions.

3) Ask questions and pay attention. When you get a prescription filled, you should have a clear understanding of the dose, potential side effects, name of the drug, and the drug instructions. Following directions can reduce the likelihood of error or a dangerous drug interaction. Always follow directions and drink water or eat food with a drug as indicated on the label. When you have questions, do not hesitate to ask your doctor or your pharmacist about concerns.

You should never share medication or take a prescription without a doctor’s consent. This could also result in serious side effects and injury. As always, when you are the victim of a dangerous drug interaction, you should consult with a legal-medical professional who can help you assert your rights.
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