Beasley Allen attorney Leigh O’Dell has been selected to serve on the Plaintiff’s Steering Committee for consolidated Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) concerning transvaginal mesh. Transvaginal mesh is used to repair conditions such as pelvic organ prolapse (POP) and stress urinary incontinence (SUI). The mesh is implanted through the vagina and is used to shore up pelvic organs that have become displaced due to age, childbirth, hysterectomy or obesity.

For years, drug companies touted the benefits of HRT. Marketing campaigns for medications like Premarin, Prempro and Provera targeted both women and their doctors, promising that the drugs could perform miracles. Manufacturers boasted these drugs could not only temper bothersome symptoms of menopause, including hot flashes, mood swings, and vaginal dryness, but they had the added benefit of protecting women against heart disease, a serious concern among older women. Use of these drugs was even encouraged for off-label uses, including the prevention of Alzheimer’s disease.

Women who are pregnant should avoid drugs used to treat hypertension, or high blood pressure, because they have been associated with injury and death to developing fetuses.

A Philadelphia, Pa., jury awarded $72.6 million to three plaintiffs in a Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) case after hearing three weeks of testimony regarding the link between hormone replacement drugs and breast cancer.

MONTGOMERY, ALA. (January 23, 2012) – Navan Ward, Jr., a shareholder with Montgomery based law firm Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C. has been selected to serve on the Plaintiffs Steering Committee for multidistrict litigation (MDL) surrounding the DePuy Pinnacle hip implant. The litigation involves more than 500 cases consolidated under Judge James E. Kinkeade in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. Pinnacle litigation involves allegations of serious adverse events associated with the Pinnacle Acetabular Cup System, a metal-on-metal hip implant. DePuy Orthopaedics is a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson.

American pharmaceutical company Merck, Sharp & Dohme has agreed to pay $950 million to resolve criminal charges and civil claims related to its promotion and marketing of the painkiller Vioxx® (rofecoxib), the Justice Department announced today.

In August 2010, people who had received metal-on-metal artificial hips began to be concerned about their implanted devices. DePuy Orthopaedics, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, had announced a recall of its ASR LX Acetabular hip system due to a higher than normal failure rate.

Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C., attorney Ted Meadows, who practices in the firm’s Mass Torts section, has been chosen to help direct litigation related to Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) as part of the Plaintiffs Steering Committee (PSC).

Wesley Chadwick Cook has been selected to serve on Plaintiffs Steering Committee (PSC) for the consolidated litigation of cases involving the Fosamax Femur Fracture multidistrict litigation (MDL)

A Supreme Court ruling on June 23 reversed separate U.S. appeals court rulings that would have held generic drug manufacturers responsible for warning patients of safety label changes.