A lawsuit lodged against the makers of Taxotere, a medication given to women going through breast cancer treatment, alleges disfiguring permanent hair loss.

Chemotherapy, a common avenue for treating breast and other types of cancer, often comes with temporary hair loss. Many patients who go through cancer are able to grow hair again in the future. Patients who used Taxotere claim they were never told that their hair loss would be permanent, preventing them from making an informed decision about their cancer treatments in the first place.

The disfiguring permanent hair loss lawsuit alleges that the defendants Sanofi-Aventis argued that Taxotere had superior efficacy based on their own sponsored clinical trials despite the fact that the FDA has already referred to those claims as unsubstantiated.

The 12 plaintiffs allege they were never warned about disfiguring permanent hair loss when they began using the Taxotere medication. All people going through cancer treatments including chemotherapy are aware of the risk of hair loss; however, many of these patients who have suffered disfiguring hair loss associated with Taxotere said they were never told that it would lead to permanent loss of their hair.

Chemotherapy was provided to one plaintiff in this disfiguring permanent hair loss lawsuit between August and November 2009. Another plaintiff in the case is a resident of California who received Taxotere treatment between May and November of 2014. All of these allegations have one common foundation- that the woman in question received Taxotere as part of her breast cancer treatment and allegedly suffered permanent hair loss as a result.

The Taxotere lawsuit alleges that the manufacturers of Taxotere never warned about the serious risks of using this medication, including disfiguring permanent hair loss. Makers of drugs and medical devices have a responsibility to thoroughly research all the possible side effects and to warn doctors and patients about the risks of use.

Clinical trials for the Taxotere product were completed between 2006 and 2012 at Stanford for patients who had breast cancer and a large-scale epidemiological study which ended in 2012. Ongoing research and development collaborations are also involved in a regular review of Taxotere completed at the University of California in San Francisco.

Plaintiff accuse Sanofi-Aventis of alleging Taxotere’s superiority over other medication and treatment options for breast cancer, despite the fact that they should have known or already did know about the risk of disfiguring permanent hair loss for patients. Plaintiffs claim that academic and medical studies that were completed after Taxotere came on the market identified that in comparison to other treatment options, Taxotere did not appear to be a significant improvement or have better efficacy compared with those other options.

Women who suffered permanent hair loss may have to cope with emotional issues they never expected after going into cancer remission or beating cancer. Many of these women have contemplated filing a lawsuit against Taxotere’s makers to hold the company accountable for failure to warn.

The Disfiguring Permanent Hair Loss Lawsuit is Case No. 3:18-cv-01501-LB in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.