Alabama plaintiff Lynda Ash has filed an Actos lawsuit against Takeda Pharmaceuticals for the wrongful death of her husband, Carl G. Ash. Mrs. Ash is alleging that Actos is the direct cause the bladder cancer that Mr. Ash developed and that ultimately took his life.

Mrs. Ash alleges in the Actos lawsuit that her husband had not been warned or notified at the time he was prescribed or any time after his prescription of the possibility bladder cancer. There were reportedly no indications on the drug’s label, and the company made no effort to point out any relevant studies or additional information that may have helped save her husband’s life. Mrs. Ash has filed this Actos lawsuit against Takeda Pharmaceuticals on the grounds that her husband would still be alive if proper action had been taken.

According to the Actos bladder cancer lawsuit, Mr. Ash was first prescribed Actos in January 2004 and stayed on the medication until a month before his death. He was reportedly diagnosed with bladder cancer on April 27, 2013, and died from the disease on May 21, 2013. Mr. Ash was prescribed Actos to treat his type-2 diabetes symptoms, due to the praise it received from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the drug’s fast and aggressive treatment results.

While Actos did indeed control Ash’s diabetic symptoms, it had also allegedly begun a fatal biological process of causing bladder cancer to develop. As of now, medical experts and Takeda scientists are not sure as to why this disease occurs, but many suspect it stems from how the body may process the drug.

Mrs. Ash insists that her husband never would have taken the drug if he had known about the possibility of Actos bladder cancer, and insists that Takeda should be held responsible for not taking adequate preventative measures. Mrs. Ash insists that Takeda had the responsibility to warn her husband and any other victims who were allegedly affected by the drug’s design flaw.

For being directly responsible for manufacturing, selling, distributing, and marketing a dangerous drug, Mrs. Ash is suing Takeda Pharmaceuticals. The charges include negligence, false advertising, concealing information and misrepresenting a product.

Overview of Actos Complications

Actos was approved by the FDA in July 1999 as a drug to treat type-2 diabetes. It was first released in the United States in April 2006, after Takeda had formed an official partnership with Eli Lilly & Company. Actos is a part of a class of insulin-sensitizing diabetes agents known as thiazolidinediones (TZDs), which means that it is only effective in the presence of insulin, making it useless to anyone with type-1 diabetes.

Actos is normally prescribed as an alternative treatment medication when other diabetic medications have failed to work due to its fast and aggressive treatment mechanism.

Scientists have observed that in many cases of Actos bladder cancer, it only takes one year or less for the condition to develop. A year after the drug was approved, Takeda received more than 180 bladder cancer reports on average per year, but the company failed to mention these injury reports on the drug’s label.

Despite the FDA finding that Actos could potentially cause bladder cancer, Actos still reportedly has no mention of bladder cancer on its label. This has led to mass criticism from the public and FDA, as well as numerous Actos lawsuits, and the formation of Actos multidistrict litigation (MDL).

The Actos Lawsuit is Lynda J. Ash v. Takeda Pharamaceuticals America Inc., et al., Case No. 6:14-cv-01781-RFD-PJH, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana. It has been added to In re: Actos Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2299, in the same court.