A Mississippi woman says she and her husband were never adequately warned about the risk of Benicar side effects.

Plaintiff Sharon and Charles J. are bringing this products liability lawsuit over complications Sharon allegedly suffered after taking Benicar HCT.

They are suing Benicar’s makers and marketers Daiichi Sankyo and Forest Laboratories, who they allege failed to issue proper warnings about Benicar side effects.

Sharon says she started taking Benicar HCT around 2006. Since then, she has suffered a long list of severe gastrointestinal symptoms that she now believes were caused by Benicar HCT.

According to Sharon, her Benicar side effects included “nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal pain/discomfort, malabsorption, fatigue, malnutrition, dehydration, inflammation, villous damage/atrophy/blunting, sprue-like enteropathy, olmesartan associated enteropathy, colitis, intestinal injury and damage.”

Charles, Sharon’s husband, is bringing his own claim for loss of consortium. The spouse of a harmed person can bring a loss of consortium claim to seek compensation for the effect of the harm on the couple’s marital relationship.

Benicar Side Effects at Center of MDL

This Benicar lawsuit is one of hundreds like it that are now being processed as part of a multidistrict litigation, or MDL, going on in a federal court in New Jersey. Since these cases share many legal and factual issues, the federal court system has put them under the oversight of a single district judge to promote more efficient pretrial processing.

Benicar is a blood pressure medication also known by the generic name olmesartan. It was originally approved by the FDA in 2002 for use as a treatment for hypertension. Benicar HCT, the specific medication Sharon took, is a combination of olmesartan and hydrochlorothiazide, another cardiovascular medication.

The Benicar MDL also implicates two other drugs that contain olmesartan. Azor combines olmesartan with amlodipine, and Tribenzor combines it with both amlodipine and hydrochlorothiazide.

These four drugs are sometimes referred to as the Benicar Family. Plaintiffs claim that olmesartan, the ingredient common to all drugs in the Benicar Family, is responsible for causing severe gastrointestinal Benicar side effects like those Sharon reported.

Both research studies and post-market reports show that Benicar is linked to a condition known as sprue-like enteropathy. This condition mimics the symptoms of celiac disease. Patients suffering from sprue-like enteropathy typically suffer from severe and chronic diarrhea, often with dehydration, malnutrition, and significant weight loss.

Patients with sprue-like enteropathy can also develop villous atrophy, a condition in which the rough interior lining of the intestines is eroded smooth. Villous atrophy can hamper the intestines’ ability to absorb nutrients from food, resulting in further malnutrition.

Plaintiffs in the Benicar MDL say the drug’s promoters, Daiichi Sankyo and Forest Laboratories, failed to properly warn patients and their doctors about the link between Benicar and severe gastrointestinal side effects.

They accuse the companies of suppressing evidence of these side effects while at the same time continuing to promote the Benicar Family as being safe and effective treatments for hypertension.

Sharon and Charles’s Benicar HCT Lawsuit is Case No. 1:16-cv-09589 in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. The Benicar MDL is In re: Benicar (Olmesartan) Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2606 in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.