QUESTION
What is the Latest Status Update for the Xarelto Litigation Over Bleeds, Deaths?
ANSWER
As of late-2018, more than 23,000 product liability lawsuits have been filed in courts throughout the United States on behalf of individuals who allege that side effects of Xarelto caused severe bleeds and other problems, such as
- Gastrointestinal Bleeding
- Brain Bleeding
- Hemorrhagic Stroke
- Death
The first complaints were filed in early 2014, and by mid-2015 the number of claims involved in the Xarelto litigation has already reached 2,000. However, as Xarelto injury lawyers continued to review potential claims, the size and scope of the litigation has rapidly expanded.
The lawyers at Saiontz & Kirk, P.A. are continuing to review potential lawsuits for individuals and family members of Xarelto users who have been hospitalized or suffered severe injury as a result of bleeding events that doctors could not stop due to a lack of a Xarelto reversal agent.
In December 2014, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation established consolidated proceedings for all Xarelto injury cases, transferring all complaints filed throughout the federal court system to U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon in the Eastern District of Louisiana.
As part of the coordinated pretrial proceedings, a small group of cases was selected for an initial series of bellwether trials. Following contradictory verdicts in various state and federal courts, Judge Fallon indicated in early 2018 that hundreds of cases will be prepared for trial in waves.
If the drug makers continue to refuse to negotiate fair Xarelto settlements or otherwise resolve the litigation, it is expected that cases will be remanded back to U.S. District Courts nationwide for individual trials over the next few years.
Allegations Raised in Xarelto Bleeding Litigation
All of the complaints in the Xarelto injury litigation involve similar allegations that Bayer Healthcare and Johnson & Johnson failed to adequately warn consumers or the medical community about the risk of serious and uncontrollable bleeding events associated with the blood thinner.
Xarelto was released in November 2011, as one of a number of new blood thinners designed to prevent strokes due to atrial fibrillation. The drug was launched about a year after its main competitor, Pradaxa.
Drug makers hoped that Xarelto would replace Coumadin (warfarin) as the go-to drug for atrial fibrillation stroke prevention, and as a wide-spectrum use blood thinner.
However, all blood thinners include the risk of bleeding events. To counteract that risk, warfarin has an antidote, vitamin K, which works as a reversal agent, allowing doctors to easily stop and treat warfarin bleeding events in most cases.
That is not the case with Xarelto. It was released with no reversal agent and doctors were given no strategy to control Xarelto bleeds. Some make-shift treatments have been used and developed, but barring a future Xarelto update, there is no approved Xarelto reversal agent.
Centralized Management of Xarelto Lawsuits
The U.S. JPML decided to establish a federal Xarelto MDL (multidistrict litigation) in December 2014, which is designed to reduce duplicative discover, avoid conflicting pretrial rulings and to serve the convenience of the parties, witnesses and courts.
Similar consolidation occurred in Pradaxa lawsuits, which was the first member of this new generation of blood thinners to hit the market. Following several years of litigation, the makers of that anticoagulant agreed to pay a $680 million settlement to resolve about 4,000 Pradaxa bleeding claims.
For individuals who suspect they may have a potential claim, it is important to review your case with a lawyer as soon as possible, as a Xarelto statute of limitations will limit the amount of time available in each case to join the litigation.
15 Comments • Add Your Comments
derric says:
Xarelto
If you ever read this, understand that you took my Mother, my 2 year olds Memaw my sisters Mother my brothers Mother and my fathers Wife of 50 years and would have been many more years …..if….. Money and greed wouldn’t have got involved. How I will never know. But due to the uncontrollable bleeding my loving mother didn’t make it. So i would like to say while you are setting on a beach enjoying all the money you made and having your family with you mine is destroyed torn apart please please believe your greed will put you deep in the pits of Hell. God bless you and may you or your family never go through what my family is going through because of greed.
Posted on August 17, 2015 at 3:17 pm
James says:
Derric, I was also one who fell to this dangerous drug after being told by a doctor how safe it was. I am only here now because of the grace of God and some very competent doctors in the E.R. This is what gets me is they know how dangerous this drug is now and believe it or not I just watched a commercial on T.V. telling how great it was!! It made me sick just to watch this knowing how many more people will be killed or injured by them just so they can make huge profits!! My heart goes out to you for the loss of your Mom.
Posted on September 13, 2016 at 4:02 am
Rod says:
I can not believe they are still advertising xeralto on television. I lost my wife of 28 years in 2014 because of this drug. She was only 46 years old. Devastated families like my own absolutely hate seeing this drug still advertised on television. The manufacturer of xeralto needs to fess up and pull these misleading commercials off all networks. Television networks that air their adds for this drug should be sued along with the manufacturers. I offer my condolences to all who have lost a loved one from this terrible drug. I pray that justice will be served .
Posted on March 20, 2017 at 7:44 pm
Geno says:
Imagine a 12 y/o boy going through a frightening experience of his mom being hospitalized for difficulty breathing. Gasping for every ounce of air she can grab. The doctor says “Your mom may have blood clots in her lungs, I’m almost positive she does”. “She’s going to get well because there is a great medicine to fix her called Xarelto. Don’t pay attention to the bad commercials on T.V., trust me I’m a doctor who knows better”!
Mom gets discharged to a Skilled nursing facility for 3 weeks rehabilitation, comes home appearing to be much better! 2 days later, she’s grasping for air again. Son goes to school worried. Dad picks son up from school. Son goes in house first to greet mom, appears she’s sleeping but son can’t wake her up. Runs outside to dad who comes in and immediately knows MOM IS GONE.
Son didn’t even have a chance to say “I love you mommy”.
Swallow that one Bayer!
Posted on March 21, 2017 at 1:53 pm
Cathey says:
I was working around my house when I noticed my foot was black and cold I went to my family dr. Who sent me straight to the hospital for ultra sound which showed I had a blood clot in my leg they did emergency surgery and while I was in the hospital I had a stroke. (Which scared my daughter who was so afraid that she couldn’t get to me because of a bad snow we had) I couldn’t talk plain at all and after a span of hospital stay I had to go to rehab for 2 weeks to try and learn how to talk and walk again my daughter was in college and she had to come see me every day. Which I know was very hard on her. Then when I finally got to come home my daughter and I was so happy and relieved but about a week or so after I got home (I was still on xarelto) I woke up one morning and when I started to get out of bed I found that I could not stand and I went straight to the floor. No one know what it feels like when you can’t feel your legs and can not stan up. I was trying to hold on to the head of my bed and pull my self up out of the floor but I couldn’t Thank God my brother was here he had to run to my bed room and pick me up out of the floor and yes i had had another stroke. My dr. Then took me off of xaralto. He then made the comment that he would have to find another blood thinner for me (Which has still not ) but I still studder alot when I talk I have slot of weakness in my hand and legs and my daughter has to help me and do most of what I should be doing. If this big drug company family ever had to go thru something like this with a loved one I bet they would take it off the market. I just wonder sometime if they use xarelto or let their family take this drug. GOD forgive them for putting this in the market . They put money before a human life I hope they loose this case and everyone effected by it wins BIG time because we deserve it
Posted on June 23, 2017 at 9:40 am
Christine says:
Zarelto is a killer and the makers of this medication make billions. I started bleeding and went into ER they took me off it and kept me a few days then my hematologist told me “it’s just a bloodthinner” she put me back on it and told me I needed to see my gynecologist to get an ablation. I started bleeding from both ends at that point became anemic and as soon as I got a lawyer she left town. Sent me a letter that she could no longet treat me because I owed $30. which I have receipts to prove I paid her. The thing is they never checked me for any kind of vascualar compression issues. They just write prescriptions for this drug that is the deadliest ive ever witnessed. Billions of dollars a year..they have offshore accounts and they pay the FDA to approve it and nevermind the people who die, suffer etc…somethings got to give! Obama wad the highest paid off president from these pharmaceuticals to date…I read somewhere that the testing/trials were manipulated to pass the FDA and everyone knows about it.
Posted on June 27, 2017 at 11:57 am
J says:
When the last thing you see your mother do is throw up blood and taking her off life support when she was normally a healthy person is something that should never have happened is criminal.hope you sleep good at night and choke on your profits.I dont have my mother anymore.
Posted on August 31, 2017 at 1:42 pm
innocent says:
they spend millions advertising to the general unsuspecting public, wining and dining doctors, and then they hide behind the learned intermediary doctrine. there’s a reason why we are one of only two countries which allows pharmaceutical advertising.
Posted on September 23, 2017 at 11:35 am
Brian says:
My mother bled out of both ends, had a stroke and was dead after 70 days. The night of her stroke the attending ER Neurologist said he saw too many of these and ans gave her 90 days. J and J was paying Docs to prescribe this crap. Now they want to throw them out due to Supreme Court Rulings against MDL types of out of state of residency filings. I don’t trust the entire system. I have felt there is much below the surface for a long time. How gould three cases be lost? Jury tampering, J and J is scrambling but they are actually out to kill off older Americans. No I’m not nuts but why are these law firms losing in succession?
I refuse to take anything more med wise than necessary. Good luck and I’m glad as serious as your situation was this Govt permitted crap didn’t kill you!
Posted on September 27, 2017 at 6:20 pm
felix says:
so are these two judges being paid off by the defendants, it seems to me there is enough evidence to win. These two judges are against letting the jury decide. hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, or maybe they are smarter then all of us………………
Posted on February 1, 2018 at 5:45 pm
Edward says:
My mother, Stella, age 83, never had a stroke, or heart attack, but apparently developed a minor case of afib, she was taking an aspirin a day with no other problems. Then her doctor gave her Xarelto saying she needed it to prevent a stroke. She died May 3, 2017 and was put on Xarelto one year prior. In March/April 2017, she developed massive headaches and went to the hospital and was released. She then had massive nose bleeds and was told to continue the medication which she did. One morning she wake up unable to speak but one work “no”. My dad took her to the hospital and an eschemic stroke was diagnosed, but at UCONN the nurse said she thought it had something to do with xarelto. They released her home and the next week she had a massive bleed out in her right lobe of her brain, and was paralyzed and could not breath on her own. She was put on a vent and we had to pull the plug on her May 3, 2018 after 46 days of utter agony. Big Pharma is an abomination. One is better to die naturally than take any meds on the market today. Use natural herbs etc. but do not put one cent into any drug company. They are thieves and are poisoning the people. Do not agree to vaccines for your children, all doctors are the product of massive mind control by drug companies who sit on the boards of major medical schools pushing their snake oils. Deny the System for good. Love and peace to all who may find it.
Posted on November 16, 2018 at 3:59 pm
llinda says:
my mom was put on xelrelto,she had eschemic stroke.she had leg weakness,throwing up,took her to her main docter in march and told him take her off xelrelto,he did blood work said continue the medication he will call,he never did.she had problems breathing too.she had big stroke and went to tennessee eurlanger hospital on helicopper.she couldnt swallow or talk,had this stroke in april.might as well give them morphine.cant breath.put her on breathing tube,took her off breathing tube.she passed.agravates me to see xelrelto on t.v.they took my best friend away.im so glad they got their family.drs. after the commission on meds,i put it in gods hands.seen my mom throw up and so sick.seen her suffer.thats not fair.she had to go to rehab alot to get her legs strong due to xelrelto.i still dealing with the stress it has caused me.need to take xelrelto off market and quit killing people.it was very hard for me to write this down,i go to grave sight n cry.drs. happy and makeing a fortune off this xelrelto while its killing people.
Posted on February 5, 2019 at 5:30 pm
Judy says:
I have read all the posts and my deepest sympathy to all the families who have lost a loved one. I would be one of those who didn’t make it but for the Grace of God and a very good ER doctor . I had a total knee replacement on March 7, 2015 the night of my surgery a nurse discovered a blood clot and They stopped all therapy and put me on Xarelto, I was scared to use it but I didn’t know what to do, I had lost a sister-in-law the year before from using this Drug, I was on it from March to June 2015, I took my last dose the 28th of June 2015 , on the morning of July 10 2015 I woke up thinking I was having a heart attack , my husband got me to the hospital, I was so shocked when the Dr. told me I was being admitted due to having a Gastric bleed. My hemoglobin was 5.5 and I had nearly bled out, I was given 6 units of blood and was in the hospital for a week , I know the lord was looking out for me, my Doctor said that he thought it was the blood thinner !!! I wish I could say that was it , it is not, February 2016 I started having migraines , I was having a bad one that had me ending up in the ER , I was admitted and after having some tests, the Doctor comes in and announces that I have a aneurisms in my brain that is inoperable due to the location, right in the center carotid artery was the culprit this time with help from Xarelto, I am not sure what is going to happen , but I know this Drug is the cause . I may not live to see it but I hope this company gets what it deserves !!! It sickens me every time I see an ad or a commercial for this poison , they should pull all ads and advertising for Xarelto . My prayers are with all the families that this Drug has destroyed , including my own, I have two daughters and several grandchildren . Sending love and peace to all.
Posted on February 8, 2019 at 2:19 pm
Nancy says:
It took my sisters life. She was only 35, leaving behind my niece who was only 10. My sister was a single mother. I have my neice now and we miss her so much every-day! It makes me sick. We will never get over it!
Posted on June 10, 2019 at 8:26 pm
Cory says:
During the winter of 2014 me and my brother were called we lived together as well . my was rushed by ambulance Elkhart memorial hospital. With complications of breathing not good so I was floored my mother was in descent health i n a lot of aspects the end result was death she sufford multiple ashemick strokes in her head she had a feeding tube put in as and had been on thus Xarelto for several months by the time we got to the hospital she had to have what was called a upper abdominal exploratory surgery performed well thats what did it she had this med made by these crooks who make this drug ! We had lawyers on this case for awhile and during that time til now all these systems your family and loved ones had to take this heart pain as well her death was ruled out do to COPD . mind u my mother wasnt even on oxygen for this she was giving Xarelto over a coupe months and our mother was so precious to us 3 sons we want closer we know she died from XARELTO
Posted on May 4, 2022 at 8:32 am