A woman has filed a Taxotere lawsuit against Sanofi S.A., a French multinational pharmaceutical company based out of Gentilly, France, after experiencing problems after her chemotherapy.

Sanofi makes and markets the prescription medication Taxotere, used in the treatment of breast cancer. Plaintiff Nadirah S., a Louisiana resident, accuses the company of failing to properly warn the public or herself that there was significant and increased risk of suffering from permanent hair loss associated with Taxotere.

Nadirah claims that her first round of medication with Taxotere that led to her Taxotere hair losswas in May 2014. The last dose of medication was administered in September of 2014.

She contends that she was treated in Willis-Knighton Health System where, according to the plaintiff, neither she nor the medical practitioners were aware of the disfiguring permanent alopecia risks that can occur following treatment of Taxotere.

Because of the Taxotere hair loss, she states that she “has continued to suffer and will suffer in the future from disfiguring permanent alopecia as a result of receiving chemotherapy with Taxotere.”

According to the plaintiff, personal injuries and damages suffered include: “past and future medical expenses, past and future psychological counseling and therapy expenses … permanent disfigurement, including alopecia; mental anguish, severe and debilitating emotional distress … and impairment of the quality and enjoyment of life.”

Nadirah contends that she would have never taken the medication had she known of the risks involved in taking the chemotherapy drug.

According to the Taxotere hair loss lawsuit, “the defendants have failed, to date, to provide accurate information and proper warnings to physicians, healthcare providers, and patients in the United States, including plaintiff, that patients who take Taxotere are at a significantly increased risk of suffering from permanent disfiguring hair loss.”

The Taxotere hair loss lawsuit continues to contend that instead of providing clear warnings and advisories of the adverse effects of using the medication, the defendants withheld information and instead provided vague, insufficient, and general warning that “hair generally grows back” after taking the medication.

The plaintiff and other patients similarly situated were not awarded the choice to make an informed decision of whether to take the medication, the complaint says.

According to Nadirah, the defendants had overstated the advantages of taking the medication versus taking other drugs being marketed at the time. They had also allegedly failed to warn the plaintiff and the public of the associated risks in suffering from “disfiguring permanent alopecia.”

The Taxotere hair loss lawsuit states that “despite numerous U.S. label changes and safety warnings issued by defendants since 1995, the words permanent alopecia or permanent hair loss did not appear in any information published by defendants in the United States until, at the earliest, December 2015.”

Plaintiffs like Nadirah contend that thousands of women were exposed to the risks in taking Taxotere and were not sufficiently warned of the risks involved in taking the medication. They were allegedly deprived of the opportunity to make an informed decision as to whether the benefits of taking Taxotere were in fact advantageous to other comparable products.

The Taxotere Hair Loss Lawsuit is Case No. 2:17-cv-04672-KDE-MBN and is part of the Taxotere MDL In re: Taxotere (docetaxel) Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2740, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.