Opening statements have begun in CVN's live webcast of Chanin v. Desert Shadow Endoscopy.
Plaintiff attorney Robert Eglet alleged that Pharmaceutical companies Teva and Baxter delivered defective Propofol packaging that unsafely encouraged health care providers to "double-dip," which risks the spread of blood-born diseases, such as Hepatitis and HIV.
Eglet said the "Big Secret," which company emails and testimony would show, was that the pharmaceutical companies knew as early as 1995 that the larger 20ml and 50ml containers encouraged double-dipping, but continued to provide them.
Then in 2001, Eglet said, dosing multiple patients from single vials resulted in a Hepatitis outbreak at an endoscopy center in New York City, which was reported in the New York Times, but the pharmaceutical companies continued to provide Propofol in 50ml vials, with inadequate instruction.
Eglet said that the smaller, safer bottles were less profitable, because they were more expensive to produce, than the larger bottles, so they stopped making the smaller, safer vials.
CVN is webcasting the Chanin v. Endoscopy Center live.
UPDATE: Plaintiff Attorney Will Kemp, in his opening statement, considered other hepatitis outbreaks at other endoscopy centers, and whether Teva should have provided stronger warnings, given that it knew of problems at endoscopy centers at least six years before Mr. Chanin was treated. According to Mr. Kemp, the evidence would show that Teva inaccurately referred to all sizes of Propofol as "single dose," but, he said, calling it such does not make it so. "I could call Mr. Eglet 'Brad Pitt,'" said Mr. Kemp. "He is not Brad Pitt."