A testosterone products lawsuit was filed against AbbVie, the makers of AndroGel, and related companies, by a Colorado man who alleges he suffered a heart attack after taking the medications.

Plaintiff Charles Gordon of Fremont County, Colo. filed his low-T drug lawsuit in September. According to the testosterone products lawsuit, Gordon was prescribed low-T drugs after direct-to-consumer marketing advertising convinced him to speak to his doctor. He took the drugs from March 2013 through June 2013. During this time, he took both AndroGel and Axiron, two different testosterone products. However, in mid-June 2013, Gordon suffered a heart attack and was hospitalized.

According to Gordon’s testosterone products lawsuit, the earliest human trials of AndroGel indicated the drug could cause clot-related problems like heart attack and stroke. The human trial data submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for AndroGel’s approval found that almost 10 percent of patients taking AndroGel experienced an increased level of hematocrit and estradiol levels. The testosterone products lawsuit explains how it is an established medical fact that these changes in blood chemistry promote an increase risk of blood clots forming in the body. This could, in turn, make a person more likely to experience stroke or heart attack.

Additionally, the testosterone products lawsuit alleges that research studies have found this same risk in people taking low-T drugs like AndroGel suggested by the changes in blood chemistry. A 2013 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association used data collected by the Veteran’s Administration to perform a cohort study of men taking testosterone products. This study found that men taking testosterone products like AndroGel had a 30 percent higher chance of having heart attacks or strokes than their peers.

Gordon’s AndroGel lawsuit also alleges that testosterone products were aggressively marketed despite these dangers. One direct-to-consumer marketing program that influenced Gordon to ask his doctor about low-T drugs was a brief self-questionnaire This marking tool was crafted by Dr. John Morley of Saint Louis University’s School of Medicine, who said he crafted this quiz in 20 minutes during a trip to the bathroom. His university received a $40,000 grant for his trouble.

In fact, several further JAMA articles accused the makers of testosterone products of “disease mongering,” and drumming up concerns about low-T. In fact, when AndroGel first hit the market, the drug’s manufacturers told the FDA that they expected a market of 4 to 5 million men. However, several years after the drug hit the market, more than 20 million prescriptions had been written.

The Low-T Drug Lawsuit is Charles Gordon v. Abbvie Inc., et al., Case No. 14 C 1748, within the multidistrict litigation In Re: AndroGel Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2545, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.