Saturday, January 10, 2009
Pharmaceutical company settles lawsuit over Phospho-soda laxative
A Roanoke County man sued C.B Fleet when he developed kidney disease after taking Phospho-soda.
A Roanoke County resident has settled his lawsuit with a Lynchburg pharmaceutical company over a laxative that has been linked to kidney failure.
The terms of the settlement Roy Main reached with C.B. Fleet Co. Inc. are confidential, said Main's attorney, Anthony Russell. "It was resolved to the satisfaction of both parties involved," he said.
Roanoke County Circuit Court Judge Charlie Dorsey signed the final order Thursday.
In August 2007, Main sued the company for $10 million, claiming that for years the company knew that its product, Fleet Phospho-soda Accu-prep, was dangerous.
At the time Main filed his suit, more than 50 lawsuits in 20 states had been filed over Phospho-soda by a group of allied law firms. Main's suit was part of that coordinated effort.
Complaints have continued to be filed. Russell said his firm, Gentry Locke Rakes & Moore, is involved with two more claims in Lynchburg and one lawsuit in Richmond against C.B. Fleet.
Phospho-soda was often used to cleanse a patient's bowels before a colonoscopy. The lawsuits alleged that in the 1990s, the company started to advocate that patients take two doses prior to colonoscopies or surgical procedures.
But studies repeatedly showed that higher dosages of oral sodium phosphate of the kind recommended by Fleet were dangerous, the lawsuits stated. The company stopped selling Fleet Phospho-soda Accu-prep in 2006.
On Dec. 11, the Food and Drug Administration issued a safety alert stating that products such as Phospho-soda should be available by prescription only and not sold over the counter. That same day, C.B. Fleet announced a recall of its Phospho-soda products.
"The best thing from our perspective is that it's off the market," and in the future patients will not have to go through what Main went through, Russell said.
According to Main's suit, he scheduled a routine colonoscopy in 2005. On Aug. 16, 2005, he took two doses of Phospho-soda six hours apart. A week later he was hospitalized with kidney failure, from which he has never recovered, Russell said.
