Over two dozen AndroGel lawsuits have been filed in Illinois, alleging that the testosterone gel product caused the plaintiffs or their loved ones to suffer heart attacks, strokes, and other serious side effects.

According to a March 14 order issued by the Executive Committee in the Northern District of Illinois, at least 30 AndroGel lawsuits were filed in federal court, and will be consolidated under under U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly in order to more efficiently process the cases, avoid similar trials, and avoid duplicate discovery. The consolidation will also serve in preventing conflicting pretrial rulings from different judges, and will make the trial proceedings more convenient for both parties as well as more manageable for the court.

This process is similar to how a multidistrict litigation lawsuit (MDL) is run, but instead of gathering all the AndroGel lawsuits that have been filed across the country, the cases are only being collected from Northern Illinois. The centralization of cases will allow plaintiffs to pool their resources, similar to how an AndroGel class action lawsuit would function.

The AndroGel personal injury lawsuits concern the low-dosage testosterone gel AndroGel, and are being directed toward its manufacturer, AbbVie.  The company is primarily facing product liability lawsuits and personal injury lawsuits regarding this product, with plaintiffs alleging the defendant deliberately withheld this information from the public to protect their profit margin.

In addition to the injury allegations, the AndroGel lawsuits also allege that the manufacturer and other testosterone supplement manufacturers created the marketing idea that low testosterone levels were a ‘disease’, which causes other symptoms such as inactivity and negative mood swings.  In their advertisements, the companies promised the public that their products would prevent testosterone levels from falling any further and would help increase testosterone production.

When testosterone drugs were first approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, they were authorized to treat these complications through drug therapy, and the drugs were often prescribed to middle aged men. When low testosterone was first brought up as a medical concern, it was thought to only have affected about one million men in the United States.  However, pharmaceutical history indicates the number to be over 20 million.

Most of the testosterone injury lawsuits filed have been toward AndroGel, which is the most popular low testosterone treatment supplement. Other Low-T products which have come up in litigatoin include Testim gel, Axiron gel, and AndroDerm patch.

Overview of AndroGel Class Action Lawsuit Allegations

In January 2014, a study was published in the PLUSOne Medical Journal that featured a study on the biological effects of low testosterone treatments on patients. The study showed that the supplements doubled the risk of heart attack for younger men with heart disease and men over the age of 65 regardless of whether or not they have heart conditions. As a result of this study, the FDA announced they were launching an investigation in the matter days later.

An earlier study was published in the November 2013 issue of Journal of the American Medical Association, which suggested the supplements caused the side effects of heart attacks, strokes, and death among older men with pre-existing heart problems.

The FDA launched a safety review of AndroGel and other testosterone replacement therapy drugs on Jan. 31.  With these two studies indicating such health hazards, legal experts soon stated that the litigation would grow exponentially because the companies understated the side effects to such a degree, and most of the products’ labels did not mention these complications at all.

These manufacturing companies promised various benefits including improved health, sex drive, greater bone density, and increased muscle build.

Despite these recent studies, many companies maintain that their products carry minimal risks, and are highly beneficial to patients.