North Carolina man claims taking Actos led to bladder cancer diagnosis

A North Carolina man is among the latest to claim that taking the popular type 2 diabetes drug Actos has caused him to be stricken with or put at risk of being diagnosed with bladder cancer.

In the last year, more and more Americans have taken a similar course to this man and have filed a lawsuit against the Japanese company responsible for the production of the drug, Takeda Pharmaceuticals. The company now faces hundreds of lawsuits which claim it hid evidence that Actos can cause a life-threatening form of bladder cancer, especially if it is taken at high doses or over long periods of time.

The lawsuit representing the North Carolina man who was recently diagnosed with bladder cancer joins others in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana where they are consolidated for pre-trial motions and proceedings as In Re: Actos (Pioglitazone) Products Liability Litigation (MDL No. 6:11-md-2299). The man is being represented by the national law firm of Parker Waichman LLP, which represents numerous victims of the dangerous side effects of Actos.

In this latest lawsuit, the Plaintiff claims to have taken Actos in the treatment of his type 2 diabetes from 2008. It was some time last year that he was diagnosed with a life-threatening form of bladder cancer. The man blames his bladder cancer diagnosis on taking Actos over another type of diabetes drug. The lawsuit claims that the man must undergo constant ongoing medical care now with this added complication to his diabetes treatments. This has resulted in rising medical bills and the lawsuit also alleges loss of consortium on behalf of the man’s spouse, according to a statement from Parker Waichman this week.

During the summer of 2011, the Food and Drug Administration finally responded to a growing number of complaints that Actos, which had become the top-selling type 2 diabetes drug on the market since the virtual removal of the previous top-seller Avandia, was causing recipients to develop bladder cancer. This risk was amplified when a person took the drug at high doses of for longer than a year. In statements prior to that date, the FDA said there was only an association between rates of bladder cancer and people taking Actos.

Type 2 diabetes has become a public health epidemic in the last decade or two, especially in the U.S. Increasingly sedentary lifestyles combined with poor dietary choices have led to a sharp rise in the diagnosis of diabetes, especially at alarming rates among children. This means more and more people will begin taking prescription treatments of their blood glucose every year. Inevitably, many will be prescribed Actos and millions worldwide take the drug every day in the treatment of their disease.

Previous clinical studies of the effects of Actos show that people taking it over another drug are 22 percent more likely to develop a life-threatening form of bladder cancer.