Another Lipitor lawsuit has been added to the mounting number of lawsuits filed against drug giant Pfizer alleging that its popular prescription cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor (atorvastatin calcium) causes type-2 diabetes.

According to the Lipitor diabetes lawsuit, Pfizer knew or should have known about the potential link between Lipitor and type-2 diabetes, yet withheld information from consumers and the medical community while turning the medication into one of the most widely used brand name drugs in the United States.

Among the most recent Lipitor diabetes lawsuits filed is that of  Maine resident and plaintiff Janet B., who filed the lawsuit in a South Carolina federal court in December.

Janet claims she was prescribed Lipitor in 1998 to lower her high cholesterol for a period of about seven years. In 2003, Janet was diagnosed with type-2 diabetes allegedly as a result of taking Lipitor, according to the Lipitor diabetes lawsuit.

Janet’s Lipitor lawsuit further alleges Pfizer knew or should have known that there was a connection between Lipitor and diabetes before it was made publicly available in 1997.

Instead, the Lipitor diabetes warning was only added to the product labeling in February 2012, after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Division of Metabolism and Endocrinology Products requested that a warning be provided for consumers and the medical community.

The Lipitor lawsuit also accuses Pfizer of putting profits before patient safety and further alleges that even after the label change, Lipitor’s label still does not adequately warn patients about the risk of type-2 diabetes.

FDA Warning: Lipitor Can Cause Type-2 Diabetes

In February 2012, the FDA released a statement on Lipitor and statins. The agency warned that patients taking these drugs may have an increased risk of developing high blood sugar levels and type-2 diabetes, and announced that changes will be made to the drug’s labeling to reflect this concern.

According to an FDA spokesperson, prescribing doctors should assess patients’ blood sugar levels after they have started treatment with Lipitor or another statin.

Lipitor Lawsuits

Pfizer currently faces more than 700 Lipitor type-2 diabetes lawsuits. The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation elected to centralize the Lipitor diabetes lawsuits in a federal multidistrict litigation, or MDL, in a South Carolina federal court.

These Lipitor lawsuits have been assigned to the U.S. District Judge Richard M. Gergel for coordinated discovery and pretrial matters. MDLs are frequently confused with class action lawsuits. However, they differ in that each lawsuit remains individual and is tried on an individual basis.

The Lipitor Diabetes Lawsuit joins the Lipitor MDL titled In Re: Lipitor (Atorvastatin Calcium) Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2:14-mn-02502-RMG, in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, Charleston Division.