A couple from California has filed a Lipitor lawsuit, alleging that the heart disease medication can cause type-2 diabetes in women.

The Lipitor diabetes lawsuit was filed by Plaintiffs Gail Q. and her husband David Q. in December 2014, and says that Gail took Lipitor between 2002 and 2014.

During this time she was diagnosed with type-2 diabetes. The couple’s Lipitor diabetes lawsuit alleges that Lipitor caused Gail to develop type-2 diabetes.

Type-2 diabetes is a permanent, lifelong disease and requires frequent medical monitoring, a physician’s care, and may cause serious health problems.

Lipitor belongs to a class of drugs called statins, drugs designed to help lower the levels of LDL or “bad” cholesterol in the blood. Lowering this parameter can decrease a patient’s risk of developing serious cardiovascular disease down the line.

However, an increasing body of medical research has indicated that statins like Lipitor may increase the risk of developing type-2 diabetes, particularly in older women.

Allegations of Lipitor diabetes are of particular concern, since various medical bodies have begun to recommend that more and more Americans take statins like Lipitor. The American Heart Association as well as the American College of Cardiology have both issued new guidelines recommending that millions of Americans start therapy with statins to decrease their risk of heart and blood vessel disease.

At the present, many patients contend that the risks of drugs like Lipitor are inconsequential compared to the risk of developing Lipitor diabetes, as heart disease is the leading cause of death among adult Americans.

However, tens of thousands of Lipitor lawsuits have been filed by patients, often women, who developed type-2 diabetes after using Lipitor, and researchers continue to find evidence of a link between Lipitor and type-2 diabetes.

So many Lipitor lawsuits have been filed over alleged Lipitor diabetes that the court system in the United States has created a multidistrict litigation, or MDL, to handle the massive amounts of Lipitor lawsuits.

MDLs are coordinated groups of lawsuits. This process allows the court system to streamline tens, hundreds, or in the case of the Lipitor MDL, thousands of individual lawsuits that make similar allegations and hinge on similar evidence. This process is designed to save time, money and effort for all parties involved.

This Lipitor Diabetes Lawsuit is Case No. 4781, within the larger Lipitor MDL, In Re: Lipitor (Atorvastatin Calcium) Marketing, Sales Practices and Product Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2502, in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, Charleston Division.