Plaintiff Delores Evans filed a Lipitor lawsuit against Pfizer Inc., alleging the drug led her to develop new onset type-2 diabetes.

According to the Lipitor lawsuit, Evans was prescribed the drug in August 1999, and continued to take it through October 2012. In January 2002, she was reportedly diagnosed with diabetes.

The Lipitor lawsuit points out that diabetes is a chronic, incurable condition. It also carries the risk of developing serious complications, like neuropathy and kidney damage. Neuropathy is a condition where nerves dysfunction and die, causing pain, tingling, and numbness.

The human body requires a certain amount of cholesterol to function correctly. However, excessive levels of cholesterol, particularly LDL or “bad” cholesterol build up, it can coat the inside of arteries, causing the arteries to harden and narrow. This forces the heart to work harder, and make it more likely that a blood clot can lodge in critical tissues. This makes patients more likely to suffer from a heart attack, stroke, or other serious complications. The amount of cholesterol in a person’s blood is influenced partly by diet, but also partially by a person’s physiology. Lipitor is designed to help control cholesterol on the physiology end. However, Liptitor lawsuits have alleged that the drug may have serious side effects.

Several studies and Lipitor lawsuits have suggested that the cholesterol drug is linked to an increased risk of developing type-2 diabetes. These Lipitor lawsuits have alleged that in addition to selling a drug linked to diabetes, Pfizer failed to warn consumers of the risk, and even actively concealed it. For example, some Lipitor lawsuits have alleged that when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration mandated changes to Lipitor’s drug information to include the risk of diabetes, the manufacturers couched the information in jargon, and never once used the word “diabetes.”

Evans’ Lipitor lawsuit may become part of a proposed Lipitor multidistrict litigation (MDL) or mass tort, in the future. MDLs are a type of group lawsuit, similar to a class action lawsuit. In both MDLs and class action lawsuits, a group of people allege that they have suffered similar harm at the hands of the same defendant. However, class action lawsuits start out as group lawsuits, while MDLs start as individual suits which are later coordinated into a single legal action. A MDL was proposed for Lipitor, but rejected at present. Individual suits against Pfizer could still eventually become a part of a later MDL.

The Lipitor lawsuit is formally titled Delores Evan v. Pfizer Inc., Case No. 2:14-cv-02293-SHM-dkv, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee, Western Division. The proposed MDL was In re: Lipitor (Atorvastatin Calcium) Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2459, U.S. District Court of Southern California.