Lariam Side Effects AttorneyWritten by Anna Henningsgaard
Mefloquine is an anti-malarial drug marketed under name Lariam. Doctors are still unsure exactly how Mefloquine protects a patient from malaria, but it is generally theorized that it prevents malaria parasite from breaking down a substance in blood called haemin by making haemin toxic to parasite. However it works, it is most effective anti-malarial drug on market, especially in areas where malaria parasite has grown resistant to more conventional malaria drugs. At first it was believed that mefloquine (Lariam) had a low incidence of side effects, but it turns out that only a fraction of problems with mefloquine had been made public. As more travelers come out to tell horror stories of Lariam experiences, controversy rises about pros and cons of taking mefloquine.Malaria is a serious, sometimes deadly, parasitic infection that is transmitted through mosquito bites in many tropical regions of world. Mefloquine, or Lariam, is most often prescribed preventative for disease. It is very effective at preventing disease and is usually safe to take, but adverse reactions that do occur are debilitating and possibly fatal. Forty-six people in Britain have already filed suits against drug’s manufacturer, Hoffmann-La Roche. Another 150 are in process of doing so and more than 500 more have contacted lawyers leading to action. In America, first Lariam lawsuit was filed by a 25 year-old Californian man who claims to have suffered crippling Lariam side effects for nearly 3 years. The Yellow Card scheme, a system through which doctors abroad file concerns with Committee on Safety of Medicines, reported 1505 adverse reactions to mefloquine between 1990 and 1998. Five of these cases resulted in death. This seems like a very small number until one considers results of a 1996 survey finding that only 10.15% of suspected adverse mefloquine reactions are reported. The true incidence of negative side effects could be much higher. So what are these side effects? Serious side effects to mefloquine include dizziness, depression, psychosis, epileptic seizures, fits, suicide, and Stevens Johnson Syndrome (SJS). SJS is a rare but often fatal skin disease. A 7 year-old girl died of Stevens Johnson Syndrome just this year after taking Lariam for a family vacation. According to its own internal documents, Roche pharmaceuticals has received over 3,000 reports of psychiatric problems associated with Lariam, from nightmares, depression, hallucinations, to paranoia, psychosis, and aggression. Lariam was also a suspected part of Fort Bragg murders in 1992, when four army officers on leave from Afghanistan (where they were prescribed Lariam) killed their wives on an army base in South Carolina. Two of officers then killed themselves.
| | Injury At Work? Workplace Injury Lawyer Will Help!Written by Anna Henningsgaard
Since days of Upton Sinclaire’s “The Jungle”, workplace injury law has improved to protect workers and repay them for injuries incurred at work. Departments like Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) have been developed to monitor working conditions and maintain a benchmark level of safety for workers. Not only is your employer responsible for providing a safe workplace, they must support you when you suffer injuries on job site. OSHA penalizes companies for dangerous working conditions. These are some very strict regulations, and it is a good idea to contact a lawyer if you mean to hold your company responsible for injuries you’ve suffered.Since its inception in 1971, OSHA has helped to cut workplace fatalities by more than 60 percent and occupational injury and illness rates by 40 percent. In past, workers had to fend for themselves. People working in dangerous industries were not paid when they had to take time off for injuries, even when injuries happened at work! These employees who took on extra risk by working difficult and dangerous jobs were not necessarily paid more, so it was often marginalized members of society such as recent immigrants who were forced to risk their lives daily just to get by. Modern standards, such as those established by OSHA, seek to make this abuse a thing of past.
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