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Nolan Files Heparin Wrongful Death Case in Illinois Melissa Scott, a dialysis patient, a wife, a mother. Melissa Scott waiting for a transplant, trained by the University of Iowa Hospitals to do her dialysis at home in Davenport, IA. Suddenly in the wee hours of the morning, while doing her nocturnal dialysis, she cries out. By the time her husband gets to her, she is unconscious, laying on the floor, unhooked from the machine. It is November 30, 2007. No one knows anything about the contamination of Baxter's heparin, beginning at least as early as September of 2007. Though there have been serious adverse reactions in St. Louis earlier that month, no call for caution has been raised, no notification to her doctors, the medical examiner that this could be a suspicious death. No autopsy is performed. The Medical Examiner chooses an old standby: "Air Embolism" to put on the death certificate. Mark Scott, Melissa's husband is always suspicious. For days before the fatal attack, she had been getting sicker and sicker while on the dialysis machine. Later in January of 2008 when the FDA announced the Heparin recall, the word Heparin jumped out at him, his wife had been getting heparin. What else that jumped out at Mark Scott was that the symptoms she had been having the days before the attack, were the same symptoms the FDA recall warned about: 1) generalized or localized sensations of warmth; 2) numbness or tingling of the extremities; 3) difficulty swallowing; 4) shortness of breath, audible wheezing, or chest tightness; 5) low blood pressure/tachycardia; or 6) nausea or vomiting. As the news mounted daily, Mark became progressively disturbed. Mark chose to call the Nolan Law Group, a firm with a track record in mass torts, including the recent $165 million settlement of the Air Phillipines crash. Our advice: only a law suit could provide access to all of the documents, all of the expert witnesses to force accountability for this and all of the suspicious death and adverse reactions from those who were on heparin during this fateful period. Wednesday, in Cook County Circuit Court in Chicago, the Nolan Law Group filed the first wrongful death case in Illinois against Baxter. Baxter is based in nearby Deerfield, IL and the courts of the State of Illinois are the appropriate courts to efficiently deal with the complex and long process of proving not only what killed Melissa Scott, but the why of this catastrophe and how many others were effected. We of the Nolan Law Group are now aggressively pursuing the search for the truth. We have hired a pathologist, a top investigator. We are demanding protective orders to preserve all evidence. Where precisely did the break in the chain of safe custody of drugs intended for the very ill, occur? Who other than Baxter is responsible? Who knew what? Who turned a blind eye? Among the most important questions we will demand an answer to: how truly widespread was the contamination and when did it really start? We will do our best to get answers for Mark Scott. By so doing, we will get to the truth of what happened to all of the others who may have been injured or killed by this classic example of prioritizing profits over safety. Chinese Supplied Heparin results in patient deaths and illness, according to FDA recall. While the mystery of what went bad with the heparin sold by Baxter Healthcare Corporation of Deerfield IL is still uncertain, the death toll continues to mount. The Chicago based Nolan Law Group is uniquely qualified to pursue any claim for wrongful death or injury as a result of these tainted drugs. Not only is the Nolan Law Group based in Illinois, it has for years taken the leadership role in multi-plaintiff cases involving injury and death. We are not out to pursue thousands of small cases, but are here to represent those with serious claims. Next: The New England Journal of Medicine: MIT Study For information on the recall, click here: To contact us, call 800-992-9447. Gordon Johnson is the Owner of the Johnson Law Office. He is affiliated with the Nolan Law Group and is co-counsel on all of the firm's Heparin cases. ©Gordon S. Johnson, Jr. 2008 |
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