|
More Ortho Evra® News
Ethicon, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, fired its chief medical officer (CMO), Dr. Joel Lippman, because of his insistence that unsafe medical products be recalled. Dr. Lippman claims that during 15 years at Ethicon, Johnson & Johnson repeatedly released or refused to recall dangerous drugs to which he objected, including Ortho Evra®. He says he was fired less than a month after insisting that Ethicon recall another product called DFK24, used in heart bypass surgery, because its tip fell off and had to be fished out of the aorta.
Dr. Lippman worked for Ethicon from July 2000 until May 2006. He claims that from 1998 to 2000, his last two years at Ortho-McNeil, he raised serious health concerns about the Ortho Evra® birth control patch, which released dangerously high levels of estrogen.
Lippman claims, "The clinical research had revealed that the estrogen dose released by the Ortho Evra® patch as a means of birth control may increase the risk of deep venous thrombosis and pulmonary embolisms."
Hundreds of Ortho Evra® lawsuits have since been filed including 12 new cases in Newark Federal Court.
Dr. Lippman advised Ortho-McNeil that it should conduct further research to understand the impact of the hormones released by Ortho Evra® and if necessary modify the package insert before it is released to the public. According to Dr Lippman, Ortho McNeil disregarded his concerns and launched the birth control patch anyway. Johnson & Johnson transferred Dr. Lippman to Ethicon in 2000, shortly after Dr. Lippman made his complaints about Ortho Evra®.
And in the lawsuit that he claims led directly to his illegal firing, Dr. Lippman says that by April 2006 he had received three complaints that an Ethicon device called DFK24, a device used in heart bypass surgery, lost its tip during surgery, and had to be retrieved from the patient's aorta. He says he and the vice president of medical operations decided that the DFK24 must be recalled because of the health risks. Ethicon's Quality Assurance Board decided to recall it, but Ethicon refused, and still had not recalled it when they fired him, according the whistleblower lawsuit.
Reference:
"Chief Medical Officer Blows Whistle On Johnson & Johnson," courthousenews.com, December 2006.
|
