Xarelto (rivaroxaban) has been in the news quite a bit lately. Over 3,000 lawsuits have been filed against the drug’s makers, Bayer and Johnson & Johnson’s New Jersey-based Janssen Pharmaceuticals. The lawsuits have been filed by patients who suffered severe side effects such as uncontrolled bleeding from taking Xarelto. Also, attorneys representing many of the injured plaintiffs have alleged that Xarelto’s makers withheld study data from the New England Journal of Medicine. Now, new studies have linked the anticoagulant with sudden onset bleeding.
Physicians Judy Hun and John Hwang did an informal study of their own patients who were taking Xarelto. The two noticed several incidences of “spontaneous vitreous hemorrhage,” or sudden eye bleeding, in their patients. The doctors, who published their full studies in JAMA Ophthalmology, noticed that these episodes of spontaneous vitreous hemorrhage tended to occur when a patient was weaned off another blood thinning medication and began using Xarelto.
A second study compared both Xarelto and Pradaxa (dabigatran) to the older anticoagulant Warfarin. This study found that patients using Pradaxa had a 50 percent higher risk for gastrointestinal bleeding than those using Warfarin, and patients treated with Xarelto had twice the risk for gastrointestinal bleeding than those treated with Warfarin. Gastrointestinal bleeding is a serious health condition that has the potential to be life threatening.
If you have been prescribed Xarelto and experienced spontaneous vitreous hemorrhage, gastrointestinal bleeding, or any other side effect, you may be entitled to compensation for your injuries. Your first step in recovering your losses should be to contact a skilled pharmaceutical litigation attorney. Bayer and Johnson & Johnson are gigantic, powerful corporations, with plenty of resources to fight any legal claims made against them. Without an aggressive and tenacious attorney representing your cause, you will find yourself outgunned in litigation against two multi-billion dollar corporations.
To get the settlement you deserve, it is vital that you contact the legal team Farah & Farah. We are currently investigating Xarelto related injuries nationwide. Call (877) 304-8840 for a free consultation.
