The U.S. Supreme Court has declined the appeal filed on behalf of consumers, who alleged GlaxoSmithKline to be held responsible for failing to warn about the risk of suicide following the use of generic versions of Paxil.
According to an order list published this week, the high court indicated that it would not consider the lawsuits filed against GlaxoSmithKline since generic equivalents are required to carry the same warning label as the product they are copying.
A Paxil suicide case, filed by the family of a man who committed suicide after using a generic drug, was dismissed by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals following the publication. The man started taking the generic Paxil in 2010 and committed suicide six days later. A lawsuit was claimed by his wife against GlaxoSmithKline for failing to add proper warnings to the Paxil label. However, the manufacturer indicated that the FDA had rejected their attempt to add suicide warnings to Paxil, arguing that the state law failure to warn claims were pre-empted by federal law.
U.S. District Court Judge Mariana Pfaelzer overlooks the MDL No. 1574 (Ninth Circuit: In re Paxil Products Liability Litigation) in the Central District of California for cases filed over withdrawal symptoms.
As per the research of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2004, children and adults taking Paxil were vulnerable to commit suicide. Later that year, a New York Attorney general sued GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) for hiding the information about such risks regarding the drug. GSK has even paid $390 million as settlements for suicides or attempted suicides because of the drug.
