Archive for the ‘Medical Experts’ Category

On June 18, 2009, a federal judge ruled that AstraZeneca, a pharmaceutical company, cannot block testimony by a medical expert that its antipsychotic drug Seroquel is linked to weight gain and diabetes.  Seroquel is an oral medication used to control the symptoms associated with schizophrenia.  Seroquel is AstraZeneca’s second-best-selling drug with $4.45 billion in sales in 2008.

The expert witness, Donna Arnett, is a professor and chairwoman of the epidemiology department at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.  Arnett asserts that Seroquel causes metabolic changes in its users, which can lead to diabetes and weight gain.  She also contends these metabolic changes occur throughout treatment with Seroquel.

AstraZeneca contended that Arnett’s testimony should be quashed, because she cherry-picked data favorable to her position.  However, the federal judge held that it would be up to a jury to decide whether her conclusions are credible or not.  This decision will affect the approximately 6000 cases pending against AstraZeneca in the federal court in Orlando, Florida.  More than 15,000 plaintiffs have sued AstraZeneca in state and federal courts, asserting that the company hid information about Seroquel potentially causing diabetes in its users.  The federal cases are combined in a multidistrict litigation before a federal judge.  The same judge dismissed two Seroquel lawsuits in January 2009, holding that the plaintiffs could not prove that Seroquel contributed to their development of diabetes.

In May 2009, AstraZeneca successfully obtained dismissal of the first Seroquel case in Delaware after the judge excluded expert testimony about the link between Seroquel and the onset of diabetes in the plaintiff.  AstraZeneca hoped that exclusion of Arnett’s testimony would produce favorable outcomes, but the federal judge denied its motion, sparking some hope in Seroquel victims.  If you or a loved one has been injured by Seroquel, you may have a Seroquel lawsuit and should contact a Seroquel lawyer.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has held that registered nurses can testify as expert medical witnesses in most legal proceedings, reversing its earlier position. In Freed v. Geisinger Medical Center and Healthsouth Corp., the court overturned a trial judge’s decision to disallow expert medical testimony from a nurse concerning the cause of bedsores.

Previously the court’s 1997 ruling in Flanagan v. Labe prevented nurses from serving as medical experts because of restrictions established by Pennsylvania’s Professional Nursing Law. In Freed, the court overruled Flanagan on the grounds that it created an inconsistency between registered and non-registered nurses. According to the Pennsylvania Rules of Evidence, even before Freed, non-registered nurses could testify if they qualified as experts based on “knowledge, skill, experience, training or education.” Registered nurses with the same qualifications, however, were prevented from testifying by the Flanagan decision. Now all nurses must simply meet the common law standards for expert witnesses.

After Freed, not all nurses can serve as witnesses in all cases. Pennsylvania’s MCARE Act prevents nurses from serving as medical experts in medical malpractice cases, providing that only registered or recently retired physicians can serve as medical expert witnesses in professional liability cases against doctors. Read more about medical malpractice lawsuits and hospital negligence.