Mississippi Woman’s Death Subject of GranuFlo Dialysis Lawsuit

By John Curran

Three adult children have filed a GranuFlo wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of their deceased mother, Myrtle Ward Creel, in a complaint transferred to U.S. District Court in Massachusetts on July 17.

Virginia Oxner and her siblings allege that as a result of elevated bicarbonate levels due to chemicals produced and sold by Fresenius Medical Care, Myrtle Creel suffered “acute cardiopulmonary arrest” or NaturaLyte cardiac arrest side effects on June 15, 2010 and died that same day at a Fresenius kidney dialysis center in Mississippi. The GranuFlo lawsuit cites studies performed by the company and presented in a November 4, 2011 internal memo that found a “significant risk of cardiac arrest and death” associated with GranuFlo and NaturaLyte dialysis products.

Specifically, the company noted that using sodium acetate was linked to a six- to eight-fold increase of cardiac arrest and sudden cardiac death at its own facilities, and the siblings’ GranuFlo wrongful death attorney alleges that the “clinical crisis became irrefutably evident” to the company around the time of Creel’s death in 2010.

At that time, an internal review was continuing and officials were collecting data that was published in the 2011 memo. However, those results were not released to other kidney dialysis providers until 2012, and even then, the GranuFlo wrongful death lawsuit alleges that the company was much more circumspect in a memo to the FDA in March of that year. As a result, the plaintiffs’ GranuFlo attorney includes counts of strict liability, failure to warn, breach of warranties, reckless and/or negligent misrepresentation and gross negligence.

Those counts include allegations that not only did Fresenius fail to perform testing that would have protected patients at its own facilities such as Myrtle Ward Creel, but the company also continued to misrepresent the risks of these side effects due to elevated bicarbonate levels to others until a Class 1 FDA recall in June 2012.

The transferred GranuFlo Wrongful Death Lawsuitis Oxner et al v. Fresenius Medical Care Holdings, Inc. et al, Case No. 13-cv-11713, U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts.

Get Legal Help for Your Dialysis Injury

Men or women who suffered from cardiac events while undergoing kidney dialysis may have legal options like Virginia Oxner. Learn more and find out your eligibility by filling out the short form at the Kidney Dialysis Heart Attack, GranuFlo & NaturaLyte Recall Class Action Lawsuit Settlement Investigation . You may be able to obtain damages or settlement funds in any wrongful death or negligence action.

Updated July 25th, 2013

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