Actos Bladder Cancer: Why Weren’t Patients Warned?

Most of the Actos lawsuits filed by victims of harmful Actos side effects are  focused on the fact that the drug did not warn on its label of one of the most serious side effects that have been linked to the drug—Actos bladder cancer. Cancer is one of the most notorious diseases in our culture, and for good reason. It ravages the body of those it affects, causing them to undergo exhaustive and exhausting treatments which can range from grueling chemotherapy to painful and expensive surgery. The financial and physical cost of cancer, even when it is not fatal, is high—not to mention the psychological cost it takes from patients, their spouses, their children, and their loved ones.

Diabetes is a serious condition that can come with a number of severe side effects, from blindness to loss of limbs and gangrene to death. Patients have been turning to the drug Actos in order to stave off some of the symptoms of Type 2 diabetes. Diabetes is characterized by the body’s inability to produce a significant amount of insulin. Insulin is a chemical produced by the pancreas that helps to break down sugars in the body. A patient with diabetes has high blood sugar because their body does not break down sugar like an average, healthy body would.

Actos has been linked to heart failure since 2005, when a study showed that patients with a history of cardiovascular problems could experience heart failure when taking Actos. However, it wasn’t until June of 2011 that the Food and Drug Administration reported that bladder cancer had definitively been linked to use of Actos. Some patients had already experienced Actos bladder cancer, but this announcement helped them to link their disease to Actos use. Many lawsuits allege that Actos tests on animals during which the animals showed signs of bladder cancer should have been indicative of a potential problem for human patients of the drug. Many plaintiffs think that this fact was almost completely disregarded shows a significant amount of negligence on the part of the drug manufacturers.