Pfizer’s Celebrex: Mass Tort Madness

 It is known fact that cockroaches need only a few airborne molecules of sugar to detect its location in a kitchen from relatively great distances - even several feet - from its source. Once the sugar pile is pinpointed, a whole swarm of cockroaches soon starts a feeding frenzy while simultaneously spreading their disease-borne feces over the eating surfaces of various culinary utensils.

Mass tort attorneys are like cockroaches. When they get a whiff of money, they swarm over a once-wealthy defendant and feed their gluttonous souls until the carcass of that unfortunate defendant is sucked dry. At the same time they spread their filth, they efficiently contaminate entire industries and saddle them with litigation payout awards that hardly ever trickle down to the individual plaintiffs. The fact is, these lawyers mainly benefit the mass of fellow insect-litigators. Actual victims are often forgotten as soon as the multitude of hourly fees and various other expenses are extracted from the settlement. A case in point of this mass tort madness is the present situation with Pfizer's (PFE) Celebrex.

Pfizer is one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies with a turnover in 2007 of 48.4 billion dollars of which Celebrex contributed 2.29 billion dollars. Pfizer earned a net profit of 8.1 billion dollars (excluding special reserves for litigation). At the same time, it carried cash and short-term investments of over 25.5 billion dollars on its balance sheet.

It is this mass of money that attracts the swarm of mass tort lawyers eager to fill their feed on any dubious claims arising from the use of Pfizer’s wide range of pharmaceutical products including Celebrex.

When the National Cancer Institute’s Division of Cancer Prevention halted their trails investigating Celebrex’s ability to prevent colorectal cancer, the mass tort attorneys started their feeding frenzy. Suddenly, legal advertisements soliciting clients appeared whenever someone attempted to do a Web search on Celebrex. These advertisements crowed about a particular law firm’s experience with class action lawsuits, including Celebrex.

Some ads even encouraged potential clients to click on their site to view the list of successful actions they had against Pfizer’s Celebrex. However, if one bothered clicking onto the featured screen, as I did, no cases were found. That’s right. Some of these attorneys were so greedy to snare claimants they were brazenly loose with the truth, betting that potential class-action members would not bother to click just one more time.

It also appears that these attorneys were too obtuse to read and comprehend the National Cancer Institute’s entire press release. If they had, they would appreciate how weak their potential causes of actions against Pfizer actually are. For example, the dosages in the group of patients that experienced a significant two-fold increase in cardiac events were never in the range of dosages recommended for Celebrex. The only approved dosage that approached the 400 mg to 800mg strengths that were followed in this study was a maximum 400 mg/day, indicated only for intermittent menstrual cramps or acute pain (up to 200 mg. twice a day as needed). Mind you, it was for pain, lasting hours to days-- not for three years of daily dosages of 400 mg. That’s right. It took three years before cardiovascular events such as myocardial infarction (heart attack) increased beyond the rate of the control group.

Also, the attorneys ignored relative risk. The study originally centered around patients with familial adenomatous polyposis, a condition that progresses to close to a 100% incidence of cancerous polyps by the time a patient with this syndrome reaches his fiftieth birthday. It was initially found that Celebrex decreased the incidence of cancerous polyps, presumably as a result of its anti-inflammatory properties. When faced with the certainty of colon cancer (that usually necessitates a colectomy or removal of the colon as a preventive measure), a two-fold risk of some cardiac event pales in comparison.

The most important overlooked fact is that there have been a multitude of longitudinal studies of Celebrex that have demonstrated no significant increase in cardiovascular events. It is only in this one singular study, using a super-normal dose of 400 - 800 mg. of Celebrex daily for three years, that has produced this result.

Ultimately, some attorney may use the argument that his client needed a three-year continuous daily dose of 400 - 800 mg. of Celebrex. Quite frankly, I cannot think of any condition that could reproduce the sensation of a continuous three-year menstrual cramp. Except, perhaps, being married to a mass tort attorney.

Disclosure: Author has a long position in PFE

 

Comments

[upndown1313:]

Merck's own brand of tort reform has slowed these "cock-a-roaches considerably" The 2 recent VIOXX appeals and overtuning of large awards will send Lanier and his gang , hopefully to do pro bono work for real people with real problems. Once can only hope.

2008 May 30 08:21 AM

[Celebrex St...:]

I have never responded to articles like this or to blogs or any of those sort of things on the internet. Unfortunately, you folks and your first responder are so misguided. I am now 42 and have suffered the devastating affects of a stroke caused by the hands of Pfizer -- they new Celebrex was dangerous, more likely to cause strokes and heart attacks and they did nothing to advise the public. My children had to watch a father go through years of re-hab, and two little boys know too much about stroke and illness. I was in great shape (running 30 miles a week), a successful attorney representing authors and artists from whom big companies stole their original works of authorship (imagine that irony), and am now restricted to home, unable to speak clearly and without stuttering, and certainly not in the shape I once was. And, imagine having to take hand-fulls of medications each day to help with terrible headaches, speech issues, motor skills, focus, etc. You see, you "professional" writers (who regularly steal other peoples' works) could have probably typed this comment in say 3 minutes, but for me it took an hour! Life for a stroke patient is in slow motion, and, despite what you may think, there are those of us for whom some really caring lawyers are looking out for. Many "plaintiff's lawyers" actually care and serve a real function putting restraints on a system that allows companies like Pfizer to seek profits and play the odds in doing so. I hope and pray that you and your family are never hurt by a drug that should not have been on the market -- and if I can ever drive at night (because of my reduced reflexes) I hope that you are never standing in front of my car -- I can't promise you that I will be able to stop in time because of the stroke that I suffered at the hands of Pfizer. Oh, and by the way, your less-than-useful writing gave cockroaches a very bad name -- did you know that they eat many other household bugs that actually cause illness and get into and destroy food, etc.) -- like worms, sugar ants, etc. You, Mr. Turner and friends, should go back to school and get your facts straight. I suggest going outside today and write a one page article about how beautiful the green trees are, how kids sound in a playground, how a bird sings a beautiful melody -- those are some of the simple things I almost lost because I was lured into taking a deadly drug about which the facts about how dangerous it was were withheld from me. Good Day!

2008 May 30 12:46 PM

[eoddiver:]

Put the 'Disclosure' first, so readers know when the author has a financial incentive behind the opinions expressed and can avoid wasting their time reading them.

2008 May 30 12:56 PM

[Abe Mishima:]

One man's drug miracle is another man's poison. Sad to say that the drug companies and the FDA do not do enough research into the latter, rare but tragic consequences. Physicians are too busy to look for warning signs, and insurance companies discourage testing that would predict future problems. I can't offer any solutions to patients on new drugs. They are always riskier than older drugs, so you need to take them for only a short period of time. This is the sad fact about science. There are no instant, foolproof miracles. We may be at the boundary of human knowledge where age old medical problems may never find a safe cure.

2008 May 30 03:12 PM

[chagrinned1:]

I am proud of you for publishing this article and love the comparison of tort lawyers to cockroaches. This is not only due to their trails left where they have fed at the trough, it is also due to the way they multiply in the face of big $$ They are truly the ambulance chasers of today and proud of it.

2008 May 30 03:21 PM

[Stephen Ros...:]

celebrex stroke guy - sorry about your misfortune but I suspect celebrex had nothing to do with your stroke.

2008 May 30 08:34 PM

[JeffSonder:]

There's two sides to every coin. But as in every dilemma there's always the third option. I have little faith in the pharmaceutical industry who see humans as passive pieces of physiology and a literal playground for their huge profit making enterprises. The mass tort industry is equally as greedy but nonetheless appears to be the only institution incentivized to hold drug makers accountable (the FDA as with most government agencies are for all intents and purposes a rubberstamp for special interests). The third option would involve a highly insulated transparent layer of impartial, objective professionals from law and medicine to decide the safety of certain types of high risk category drugs. Too bad Arthur Liman is no longer with us.

2008 May 31 09:14 AM

[time will tell:]

for this cox-2 drug target, pfizer did everything perfectly well: have 100% of the market and wiped out thousands of lawsuits without paying a cent. Time will tell the Pfizer management team is brilliant.

2008 May 31 01:33 PM

[davidfriedl...:]

1. Maybe lawyer success is a manifestation of the "free market" you so love. After all, you will need to regulate lawyers in order to stop this "despised behavior". I would think that based on your comments you are against this type of regulation.
2. I find it ironic that your description of "greed" fails to include the CEOs of these companies who get paid hundreds of millions, often through deferred payment plans and other shifty ways - are they cockroaches or beetles?
3. Lawyers fill in the void of government regulation.
The question is who is going to make sure massive corporations are not abusing their power and distributing useless or dangerous products - either lawyers or the government. You choose

Me thinks you are jealous of lawyer salaries? Why don't you vent out your frustration at overpaid corporate managers?

2008 May 31 02:57 PM

[pharmafriend:]

This is a reminder-that if a drug (or an "all natural" supplement) can have an effect (positive) it can also have a side effect (negative). Since all people are not identical they react to the same drug slightly differently (interpatient variability). Do we take a drug off the market that has helped hundreds of thousands because 2 or 3 people have an adverse event at the far end of the bell curve? It will probably be another 50+ years before we can test each patient to see how he/she will react to a certain drug. In the meantime our choice is to accept the miniscule risk or don't allow any new drugs on the market.

2008 Jun 01 10:54 AM

[pmrtnp:]

Aspirin is dangerous, too --why don't the parsite tort attorneys go after that drug......?......oh, right, there's no carcass to suck dry....

2008 Jun 01 01:20 PM

[Tom B:]

"Aspirin is dangerous, too --why don't the parsite tort attorneys go after that drug......?......oh, right, there's no carcass to suck dry...."

Precisely right. From a safety perspective, I'd take Celebrex any day over aspirin.

2008 Jun 05 08:51 AM

[Larry88:]

Celebrex killed my mother, and made her suffer for 6 months. I have studied this drug for years. The FDA should have banned this drug, along with its sister drugs, Bextra and Vioxx. The FDA has become a corporate whore.

2008 Jun 22 03:11 AM