Late Night TV Lawyers

I'm sure you've seen them. The ads that come on TV trolling for someone, anyone, who has been harmed in any way by a drug or product. Right now I'm thinking about BadDrug. It's from a law firm or solicitor of some sort asking for clients who may have been harmed by Xarelto.

Now Xarelto is a blood thinning drug. It's used as a stroke-prevention treatment. A stroke is when a blood clot forms and moves to your brain. By keeping blood thinner it's less likely to coagulate and form a clot. Low dose aspirin is used but people who are at high risk for stroke need more. Warfarin, sold under the trade name Coumadin, has been used for years. Warfarin is the active ingredient in rat poison. The rats bleed out internally and die.

The problem with Warfarin is that it requires constant monitoring to make sure your blood is not too thick or too thin. That means frequent trips to the doctor to have blood drawn and analyzed. Xarelto does not require monitoring.

These hucksters are looking for people who may have experienced internal bleeding due to Xarelto. One of the main side effects of any blood thinner is that you bleed easier. Someone on a heavy-duty thinner like Xarelto could be in danger from a nose bleed or a cut finger because the blood doesn't clot. In other words, the drug is doing what it was intended to do.

That brings me to the point of this post. I'm all for holding people responsible if they cause harm but in this case I'm scratching my head. Let's see, you want to find the makers of Xarelto liable because the drug thinned your blood just like it was supposed to do? You took it voluntarily because your doctor suggested that taking it might lower the risk of having a stroke and either dying or being incapacitated for the rest of your life. Wake up. There are side effects to everything. You'll starve if you don't eat but if you do you might end up obese with a host of other troubles. Nothing comes free.

When I was in law school we studied inherently dangerous activities, like demolition and blasting. Our professor asked why knives don't carry a warning that they might cut you. The answer was, because that is what knives are supposed to do. We don't have to warn about a product doing what it was intended to do.  Nearly 40 years later it appears we do have to warn people about a product doing what it was meant to do.