A Kentucky woman is suing the makers of Taxotere, claiming her hair loss after chemotherapy was permanent.

Plaintiff Patricia N. says she was treated with Taxotere after being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2012.

When she later suffered hair loss after chemotherapy, she did not suspect that her hair loss could be ongoing or permanent because of the effects of Taxotere.

As a result of her chemotherapy treatment with Taxotere, Patricia says, she now suffers from disfiguring permanent alopecia.

Plaintiff: Sanofi Failed to Warn About Hair Loss After Chemotherapy

In her Taxotere lawsuit, Patricia now accuses defendant Sanofi-Aventis US LLC and its related companies of intentionally covering up evidence that Taxotere can be linked to permanent hair loss.

Sanofi sponsored its own clinical study that revealed a link between Taxotere and permanent baldness, according to Patricia. The GEICAM 9805 study ran from the late 1990s to 2005.

When it was done, Patricia says, Sanofi was on notice that over 9% of the study’s participants who took Taxotere suffered hair loss after chemotherapy that lasted up to 10 years and five months, and in some cases even longer.

Another study revealed similar results in 2006. Patricia says that a record review by a Denver-based oncologist revealed that over 6% of his patients suffered from permanent disfiguring hair loss.

Patricia says Sanofi knew about the results of these studies, or at least should have been aware of them. At the same time, she claims, Sanofi “knowingly, intentionally, and wrongfully” withheld the results of the GEICAM study from the medical community and the general public.

She alleges Sanofi’s promotional materials misled patients to believe that hair loss after chemotherapy with Taxotere would eventually resolve.

She says the words “permanent alopecia” or “permanent hair loss” did not appear in any of Sanofi’s published materials in the U.S. until December 2015 at the earliest.

By keeping patients in the dark about the effects of Taxotere, Patricia says Sanofi robbed them of the opportunity to make an informed decision about their health care.

Women who chose Taxotere may have opted for an alternative treatment, such as Taxol, that does not come with as much of a risk of permanent alopecia.

“As a direct result of Defendants’ wrongful and deceptive acts, thousands of women were exposed to the risk of disfiguring permanent alopecia without any warning and without any additional benefit,” Patricia claims.

The Taxotere MDL

As a plaintiff in a Taxotere lawsuit, Patricia is far from alone. Her Taxotere lawsuit is part of the multidistrict litigation, or MDL, now going on in a federal court in New Orleans.

The Taxotere MDL was set up this past October with an order from the federal Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation transferring several dozen Taxotere lawsuits like Patricia’s into a single court for coordinated pretrial processing.

Patricia’s Taxotere Lawsuit is Case No. 2:16-cv-16757 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. The Taxotere MDL is In re: Taxotere (Docetaxel) Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2740, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.