Fosamax Class Action Lawsuit Site

United States and Canadian courts of law have adopted multiple district litigation proceedings to organize and streamline the process for dispensing justice to plaintiffs filing suit with drug manufacturers of Fosamax, media reports say.  Intravenous and oral formulations are both included in complaints against bisphosphonate medications.

Legal controversy has hounded the popular class of osteoporosis medication called bisphosphonates. There are rare and serious side-effects associated with the use of bisphosphonates such as Fosamax, Actonel, Aredia, or Zometa which include atypical femur fractures and osteonecrosis fo the jaw. Major drug manufacturers are currently under scrutiny for producing and marketing these osteoporosis medication the most well known of which is Merck and Co. 

In 2000, the FDA received a steadily growing amount of complaints about Fosamax use and links to osteonecrosis of the jaw. While this complication was originally thought to be linked to intravenous bisphosphonate use, later reports show that oral bisphosphonates such s Fosamax are just as culpable. 

Osteonecrosis of the jaw is otherwise known as “dead jaw” syndrome and is a disfiguring disease that involves the jaw bone to die. Its symptoms include gum and jaw pain, infection, impaired wound healing, numbness, loss of teeth and tissue necrosis. On September 24, 2004 an FDA advisory ordered Merck to upgrade their warning list for Fosamax to include osteonecrosis of the jaw, which has since made legal claims of negligence against the company hard to bring to trial.   Later in May 13, 2007 hundreds of cases were filed and pending trial against Merck and Fosamax related complaints which alleged that the drug company was responsible for profiting off the misfortune of patients who were mislead into taking the osteoporosis drug.

The first bellwether lawsuit against Merck for osteonecrosis of the jaw resulted in mistrial but regardless has since opened the door for more suits to follow against the bone drug manufacturer.  Five more compensatory claims against Merck have been resolved but have all more or less resulted in defense verdicts in favor of the pharmaceutical company except for one which was appealed and still not resolved.   The majority of later cases were ruled in favor of Merck because court findings did not determine that the drug maker was wholly responsible for the damages caused by the complications experienced by the plaintiffs citing that different factors in each case could have triggered the osteonecrosis of the jaw and not necessarily from taking Fosamax. 

Despite the string of victories in favor of Merck in trials involving osteonecrosis of the jaw, lawsuits are continually being brought against the medication company.  Lawsuits involving atypical bone fractures are awaiting their turn to be tried against the pharmaceutical company. As of 2011, approximately 2,345 cases, which include approximately 2,800 plaintiff groups, had been filed and were pending against Merck in either federal or state court in both Canada and the US.