Practice Areas

• Car & Motorcycle Accidents
• Crashes Caused by Trucks
• Medical Malpractice/ Doctor Mistakes
• Railroad Injury/ FELA
• Brain Damage/ Head Injuries
• Wrongful Death
• Slips, Trips & Falls
• Mass Transit (Airline, Train, Bus)
• Dangerous Drugs/ Product Recalls
• All Serious Injuries

HSInjury Blog

Dangerous Drugs/Product Recalls

• Bayer Claims They Have "Meritorious" Defense Against Yaz/Yasmin Birth Control Lawsuits
• Man Harmed by Acne Drug Accutane Wins $25 Million Judgment
• Evidence Mounts Linking Avandia to Heart Attacks, Drug Company Tried to Hide the Facts

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Norfolk-Portsmouth Personal Injury Lawyer

• Safety Put at Risk Due to Air Traffic Control Complacency

Virginia Beach Personal Injury Lawyer

• Johnson & Johnson Internal Documents Reveal Unsavory and Potentially Illegal Marketing of Risperdal

Northeast NC Personal Injury Lawyer

• Are You a Victim of a Slip, Trip and Fall Accident?

Firm News

• Attorney Examines Unsavory Marketing Tactics by Johnson & Johnson
  Posted on 3/12/2010
• Medication Mistakes Kill or Hurt 1.5 Million Americans
  Posted on 2/25/2010
• Attorney discusses medical problems linked to denture creams
  Posted on 2/24/2010
• Attorney Examines Link Between Yaz and Blood Clots/Stroke
  Posted on 2/22/2010
• Attorney Discusses Prescribing Fentanyl/Duragesic Pain Patches
  Posted on 2/3/2010

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Library

Dangerous Drugs/Product Recalls

• Dangerous Birth Control Medication and Their Terrible Side Effects
• Paxil is a Dangerous Drug and You Need to Know the Risks
• Avandia is a Dangerous Drug and You Need to Know the Side Effects

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Drug Company Hurt Patients With Product OxyContin

The company called Purdue Pharma has made 2.5 billion dollars selling this drug by telling doctors and patients that it was less likely than existing pain killers to lead to addiction problems. Doctors know that heavy pain killers are very likely to get patients into trouble because of their powerful narcotic effects. The most seriously injured patients often have a hard time weaning themselves off of pain killers after bad injuries. It turns out that the drug maker in this case knew that the risk of addiction was even higher with OxyContin on the level of morphine. The company lied to get more sales.

The U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia (VA) should be commended for a five year fight against this big drug company. They were able to extract a fine of over 600 million dollars. They obtained convictions against three individuals for crimes associated with this fraud. Hopefully, big pharmacy companies in the future will pay attention that sometimes the government will take them to task for false advertising. However, the company still made well over a billion dollars that didn’t have to be disgorged. So, big drug companies may make the decision that even if they get caught lying about their drugs that they can still make huge profits. The three executives had to pay fines individually of over 30 million dollars. The very idea that company officials should have 30 million dollars individually to pay a fine shows that something is wrong in the way our corporate culture in America works.

There is a class action against the company for this fraud. Many lives were seriously harmed and some lives were in fact taken as a result of this corporate dishonesty. Some communities were devastated by drug abuse related to OxyContin. People were misusing this prescription drug. People were buying and selling the drug as if it were cocaine. This problem was especially true in rural communities in Western Virginia (VA), in West Virginia (WV), North Carolina (NC) and in other places in the Appalachian areas of the Southern United States. One of the things that the U.S. Attorney in the Western District of Virginia (VA) said was that this was a vindication for the community. This shows that it wasn’t something wrong with the people of Western Virginia (VA) that caused this drug crisis. A large part of the blame goes to this drug company flooding the market with a product that was mislabeled and deliberately sold in a way that was dishonest.

As a personal injury lawyer in Virginia I am always willing to look at products liability cases against drug companies for selling a product which is defective, including because it was fraudulently mislabeled. I believe the OxyContin cases will result in some civil liability for this company for ruining lives now that the intentional fraud by the at-fault company has been shown and admitted to.

About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper Lewis & Appleton personal injury law firm is based in Virginia (VA), near the NE North Carolina (NC) border and handles car,truck,railroad, and medical negligence cases and more. Our lawyers proudly edit the Virginia Beach Injuryboard, Norfolk Injuryboard, and Northeast North Carolina Injuryboard as a pro bono public information service. Lawyers licensed in: VA, NC, SC, WV, DC, KY.

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Our Injury Lawyers Have Been Selected For Many Achievements Outlined Below:

Several  Injury Attorneys With Our Firm have been included among the "Best Lawyers in America" 2010 Edition (Lewis-Injury Law, Shapiro-Railroad Injury Law) and been Named As Virginia "Super Lawyers" For Personal Injury Law  (Lewis, Shapiro - 2009 Ed.)(Less than 5% of Outstanding Lawyers are Chosen); also selected by the National Million Dollar Advocates Forum (Lewis, Shapiro - 2009); named among the Top 100 Lawyers in Virginia by ATLA (Shapiro - 2009), and our law firm was the first Injury Law Firm in Virginia Invited to Join Primerus, a select group of Highly Ethical, Respected Law Firms .

In October, 2000 our law firm and co-counsel obtained, what was then, the largest record verdict in Virginia's history for an injured person (46 Million Dollar Verdict, with Interest, 60 Million Dollars, Settled confidentially during appeal).  Click on icons for more details.

Geographical Areas:

Our personal injury lawyers handle personal injury cases throughout the eastern USA, and work closely with lawyers in other states on signficant injury cases.

As to Virginia (VA), this includes: Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Hampton, Newport News, Suffolk, Richmond (entire area), Petersburg, Roanoke/Salem, Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax, Fredericksburg, Charlottesville, all areas of the Eastern Shore, including Accomack, Onancock, Chincoteauge, Wachapreague, and Cape Charles, Bloxom, Eastville, Exmore, Greenbackville, Machipongo, Mappsville, Melfa, Nassawadox, Onley, Tangier, Temperanceville, Wachapreague, and Wallops Island, Ashland, Big Stone Gap and any other city/ounty.

As to West Virginia (WV) personal injury claims: Bluefield, Beckley, Bridgeport, Charles Town, Charleston, Fairmont, Huntington, Lewisburg, Madison, Martinsburg, Morgantown, Moundsville, Parkersburg, Ripley, Sutton, Weirton, Wheeling, and any other town or county.

Injury Lawyers licensed in VA, WV, NC, SC, KY & Wash., DC.

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Dangerous Drugs/Product Recalls

• What are Yaz, Yasmin and Ocella?

• What are the differences between Yaz, Yasmin and Ocella?

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