Drug & Device News

Opioid Addiction Caused By Marketing Misinformation, Plaintiff Argues

Joseph Caltagirone, the father of a young man who died of an accidental methadone overdose after he became addicted to opioids, has appealed the summary dismissal of his case against drugmaker Teva Pharmaceuticals. Caltagirone contends the manufacturer aggressively promoted its fentanyl lozenge product Actiq to physicians as a treatment for a number of ills, even though it was only approved for use by cancer patients and was supposed to be prescribed only by oncologists specially trained in the use of Schedule II opioids. Caltagirone's son was prescribed Actiq for migraine headaches and became addicted. The trial court threw the case out, citing federal preemption and the learned intermediary doctrine. On appeal, attorney Richard Hollawell of the firm of Console & Hollawell asserts in plaintiff's brief that “[t]he law of Pennsylvania is that a jury is to determine whether 'proper and adequate' information has been given by a drug manufacturer to a physician alleged by the defense to be a 'learned intermediary,'” and “[i]t is the defendant manufacturer itself that has misled the intermediary and preserved the causation required to impose liability.”

Woman Fired for Marijuana Use Wins Workplace Discrimination Suit

Christina Barbuto, a woman who was fired from her job by an employer with a zero-tolerance position on drugs, recently prevailed in her discrimination suit before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The court found that Barbuto's former employer, Advantage Sales & Marketing LLC, discriminated against her based on her need to treat her Crohn's disease with marijuana. The company's federal-law argument — that federal law still prohibits the use of marijuana for any reason — failed. The outcome therefore differed from the one obtained by a Colorado employer in a similar case decided in 2015; that state's courts determined that an employer prohibiting any marijuana use was shielded by federal law from liability under state anti-discrimination law.