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Posted by: ASGopt on 2009-05-17, 23:19:16
I don't know much about how class action lawsuits are done, but I have info on methadone. It's a medication that acts on opioid receptors, like opiates (morphine, heroin) but it's not chemically similar to morphine or heroin. So it has the same result but it's not a derivative of morphine or heroin. It's given to patients that have chronic pain, as an anti-cough medication for people coming out of surgery where they're not supposed to be coughing, and for opiate addicts who are looking to overcome their addiction. Many different drug companies manufacture methadone. If you are looking to sue, you need to figure out who you are suing and for what. Are you suing the manufacturer (the one who made it), the distributor (the one who gets the medication to hospitals and pharmacies) or your prescriber. Many people believe that methadone is used by drug companies to profit off of addicts because methadone is a legal opiate. However this is a strong, unfounded claim, especially since morphine is legal, and since methadone is considered Class II (it's a controlled substance because of its addictive potential, in the barely legal category, same as morphine). You would have to prove that the drug company or distributor were careless in considering potential addiction. You would have to look up the clinical studies for methadone (go to FDA.com or NIH websites) to see how addictive methadone is and whether the benefits of the drug outweigh risks. If you are considering filing a lawsuit against your doctor, you would have to prove he made bad judgement in prescribing the medication to you (he had no reason to, or there was an alternative that did not have addiction potential). That's all I know. Good luck with whatever you choose to do. |
