In Illinois, three people have joined together to file a Dilantin lawsuit against Pfizer Inc. after each of them got Stevens Johnson Syndrome (SJS) from taking the anti seizure medication.

Dilantin is an anti-seizure drug most commonly prescribed to treat epilepsy—which means that it’s prescribed to all ages of people from young children to the elderly. Children as young as 2 have died of Stevens Johnson Syndrome (SJS), which is almost always the result of a bad drug reaction. At heart, SJS is a severe skin reaction that quickly turns deadly when it becomes TEN (skin death). Filed in St. Clair County, the plaintiffs claim that two of the victims developed SJS and a third person died from it. Unfortunately, SJS has a high mortality rate if it’s not caught and treated in time.

The vast majority of people afflicted with SJS are treated in burn units, but wrong diagnoses are common. Many doctors haven’t seen SJS in person, and it often presents in early stages as an innocent rash. People, even when they go to the emergency room or urgent care, are often advised to go home and keep an eye on the rash. However, SJS can turn deadly overnight, especially in vulnerable populations. Shirley Johnson, Michael Shepherd and the wife of the late John Taylor are taking action to help stop others from becoming victims.

When a person gets SJS, it’s both incredibly painful and debilitating—the skin begins burning from the inside out and blisters spread across the wet regions of the body such as near the eyes and groin. Severe rashes spread, and the skin soon begins separating from the body. Once SJS rashes have spread to more than 30 percent of the body, SJS turns into TEN which is skin death. At this point, the prognosis is critical and there’s no telling if the body will begin healing itself in time. All that can be done is constant monitoring in burn units, which includes painful cleanings of the body.

Even if a person survives SJS, they’re often deformed and/or disabled for life. One of the “favorite” spots for SJS to attack is the eyes, which can lead to permanent blindness. There are stories shared about blossoming actresses who lost their career to the disease, and others of young children who look as if they were burned alive when in reality it’s just the lingering side effects of SJS. A number of drugs are linked to SJS, and many of them—including Dilantin—allegedly don’t include adequate warnings about the risks. Most people haven’t even heard about SJS unless they or someone they know has become a victim.

Plaintiffs Say Pfizer Didn’t Warn about Dilantin SJS

All three of the Illinois plaintiffs say that Pfizer didn’t properly warn consumers and/or doctors about the risks of Dilantin. The St. Clair Record holds a report from the plaintiffs where they say that Pfizer notified Health Canada that Dilantin “carried a substantially increased risk of adverse reactions” when the company was looking for Canadian approval of Bextra (a sister drug to Dilantin), but there was no mention of any related Dilantin risks.

While anyone could potentially develop Dilantin SJS, data reveals that patients with the HLA-B*1502 allele are facing an even higher risk. You can discover your risk factor via a blood or genetic test, although this specific allele appears almost exclusively in patients of Asian descent. It’s estimated that up to 15 percent of patients hailing from China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan, Thailand and the Philippines have this allele.