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Oberle

Trusted Member
If being autistic at 8 wasn't bad enough. . .

AN ALABAMA man who grew enormous breasts after taking an antipsychotic drug as a boy was awarded $2.5 million in damages in a Philadelphia court yesterday against the Johnson & Johnson subsidiary that makes the pill.

A Common Pleas jury concluded that Austin Pledger, now 20, "was not adequately warned" that he would grow size 46DD breasts as a side effect of using Risperdal, produced by Janssen Pharmaceuticals, according to his lawyer, Thomas Kline.

"This trial is important publicly," Kline told the Daily News yesterday, "because it provided for the first time a public window into the real risks of this drug."

A spokeswoman for Janssen, located in Titusville, N.J., said the firm is "disappointed" and "believes this verdict should be overturned," claiming that Risperdal's side effects were clearly communicated to Pledger, his family and the prescribing doctor.

Pledger, a native of Thorsby, Ala., was first prescribed the drug in 2002 by his family physician, Kline said.

At the time, Risperdal was not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in children - Pledger, who has autism, was 8 years old when the prescription was written - and its label reported that the risk of gynecomastia, a condition that causes men to grow female breasts, was low, according to Kline.

However, in 2006, the FDA approved Risperdal's use as a schizophrenic aid for children and issued new label information that said the drug contained high levels of prolactin, a hormone that promotes breast growth, Kline said.

By that time, Pledger already had begun to develop breasts. To this day, Pledger has female-like breasts that can only be removed through a mastectomy, Kline said.

Robyn Reed Frenze, Janssen's director of product communication, said that the firm rejects these claims and that the FDA-approved label "properly warned" the boy's family "of the medication's potential side effects."

She added that Pledger's "quality of life was significantly improved during the time he was taking Risperdal."

The jurors apparently disagreed.

Pledger's case is the first of more than 1,200 filed in Philly over Risperdal to be settled, according to Kline.​


source: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/2...amages_after_drug_gave_him_big_boobs.html?c=r
 
How many women who want big boobs but can't afford the plastic surgery do you think are going to start trying to get their hands on Risperdal?
 
How many women who want big boobs but can't afford the plastic surgery do you think are going to start trying to get their hands on Risperdal?
Also, the transwomen. If only it gave them huge asses as well, we'd see a corresponding drop in criminal plastic surgery accidents.
 
How many women who want big boobs but can't afford the plastic surgery do you think are going to start trying to get their hands on Risperdal?
I seriously doubt they could use it effectively.
They would be stumbling slurring messes with drool coming from their mouths.

Psychotropic drugs are prescribed for a reason.
 
How did I know it was Risperdal when I read the title...smh. They knew about this particular adverse reaction ("side effect", my ass) when it first hit the psych market, long before the attorney clearinghouses started advertising to sue over it.

When it first came out, they were using a voucher system to hand it out like candy to both adult and juvenile inmates. EVERYbody was suddenly "Schizoaffective, NOS". The psych docs "earned" their kickback vacays from Janssen to go surfing in Australia (true, my PCP and I were talking about this particular promo b/c a doc in his former practice was going) by spoonfeeding that shit to inmates by the handfuls to keep them stoned out of their gourds - oops, I mean "compliant" - in no time.

That's O.K. Janssen can afford it. They also make Fentanyl. A month's worth of 75mcg. patches are about $639.00-ish for a box of 10. They can afford to pay for umpteen male mastectomies and subsequent testosterone therapies. The guys with the big, giant, puffy areolas and saggy titties were bad enough, but the ones who freaked when they started lactating and thought they had cancer were downright pitiful. *sheds a tear for Big Pharma* :finger:
 
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Jeebus. I have DD, and sometimes they are more than I can handle.

My brother takes rispirdal, no moobs on him. Well, I haven't LOOKED, anyway.
 
I'm torn on this one. First off it's not him who sued. His autism is severe enough the court considered him incapacitated - they didn't let him testify. His mother testified. They didn't go to news outlets first, they went to People magazine and gave an exclusive interview before other media outlets grabbed the story.

A child was prescribed something that was not approved for children. That doesn't fall onto the drug makers, that falls onto the doctor who prescribed it and the parents that allowed it. As a parent I would never allow my child to be used as a guinea pig, especially for something as volatile as an anti-psychotic. The package always stated it was a side effect, to me it doesn't matter if the chance is low or high, they gave doses of a hormone that causes breast growth to a teen going through puberty. That should have been taken into account by his doctor.

His doctor is playing stupid and testified he didn't know the side effects of the drugs. If that's true he should be stripped of his license. You cannot prescribe someone something and not know the side effects or ingredients used. That's how you kill someone.

A Common Pleas jury found that Austin Pledger, his family and his doctor were not aware that the drug Risperdal -- an anti-psychotic made by Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson -- could cause him to grow 46DD breasts,

[..]

Pledger was first prescribed the drug by his family physician in 2002

[...]

At the time, the drug's label reported that the risk of gynecomastia, a condition that causes men to grow female breasts, was low, according to Kline.

However, the FDA warning was changed in 2006 -- when Risperdal was approved for use by children -- to say the drug contained high levels of prolactin, a hormone that promotes breast growth,
http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2015/02/post_220.html


Also he's not a small guy to begin with, he'd have moobs either way. A 46" chest is a XL-XXL size. Some of the breast size will definitely be directly related to his weight.

I personally feel if it affected his life enough to sue, his parents should have sued his doctor instead of joining a class action lawsuit. I think they are using what happened as a way to get rich.

Austin:
austin-pledger-435_zpsl2otbq6f.jpg
 
You cannot prescribe someone something and not know the side effects or ingredients used.
AMEN to that! I cannot tell you how many times we have gone through this with doctors, for both myself and my son.
 
How did I know it was Risperdal when I read the title...smh. They knew about this particular adverse reaction ("side effect", my ass) when it first hit the psych market, long before the attorney clearinghouses started advertising to sue over it.

When it first came out, they were using a voucher system to hand it out like candy to both adult and juvenile inmates. EVERYbody was suddenly "Schizoaffective, NOS". The psych docs "earned" their kickback vacays from Janssen to go surfing in Australia (true, my PCP and I were talking about this particular promo b/c a doc in his former practice was going) by spoonfeeding that shit to inmates by the handfuls to keep them stoned out of their gourds - oops, I mean "compliant" - in no time.

That's O.K. Janssen can afford it. They also make Fentanyl. A month's worth of 75mcg. patches are about $639.00-ish for a box of 10. They can afford to pay for umpteen male mastectomies and subsequent testosterone therapies. The guys with the big, giant, puffy areolas and saggy titties were bad enough, but the ones who freaked when they started lactating and thought they had cancer were downright pitiful. *sheds a tear for Big Pharma* :finger:
In protest, I'll try to only use 10 vials of fentanyl today on my patients:mad:
 
In protest, I'll try to only use 10 vials of fentanyl today on my patients:mad:

PREACH! The insanity never ends...

How'd you like them changing hydro to a friggin' Sched. II ? Right up there fentanyl, oxy, dilaudid and cocaine and all the shit that goes with it as the standard, routine drug of choice. :nurse: :mad: :mooning: :finger:
 
.... You know what. Why in the hell don't they just make ills for that(Breast enlargement?)
Instead of making women get fake ones?
The pills they have now, either you have to keep taking them for the rest of your life to maintain that growth or they just shrink back down....Unless they have made an actual pill I do not know about...
But seriously
 
My son was on Risperdal years before 2002. I was NEVER told this drug had not been approved by the FDA. I didn't have a clue about the gynecomastia until I started seeing all the commercials on tv asking for people to join the lawsuits if affected by this drug. My son hasn't had any indications of it so far.
 
I personally feel if it affected his life enough to sue, his parents should have sued his doctor instead of joining a class action lawsuit. I think they are using what happened as a way to get rich.

No doubt about it.

If this guy cared at all about his physical appearance he'd exercise and get a fucking haircut. I highly doubt growing tits negatively effected his life. Not like he was impressin anybody anyways.

I also don't get why he was awarded 2 million. The company should have paid for the masectomy and a few more thousand for the hassle of it all and called it fair, cuz it fucking would be.

Greedy scumbags and dipshits all around.
 
My son was on Risperdal years before 2002. I was NEVER told this drug had not been approved by the FDA.
It was approved by the FDA, just not for use in children. Really it would depend on your son's age at the time. As far as drugs go, 12 years seems to be the cut off between children's meds and adult meds. :shrug:


The company should have paid for the masectomy and a few more thousand for the hassle of it all and called it fair, cuz it fucking would be.
Except that the lawyer repeatedly said he was to frail to have a mastectomy. Only in the people interview does she really imply what her version of frail means. He's not physically frail, but she makes it seem that way. She's implying he's to mentally frail to talk into the surgery. If his autism is severe enough that he can't testify and he can't make the decision to cut them off, who can say for sure how much the breasts have even impacted his life. To me it sounds like his parents have a bigger problem with the breasts than he does.

Austin can only get rid of his breasts with a mastectomy, Kline says, which he has not yet done.

"He has only now been through his teenage years," he says. "These decisions are difficult and even more so when the child is frail, like Austin, so his mom has been very slow and patient."
http://www.people.com/article/austin-pledger-risperdal-breasts-autism-philadelphia
 
they gave doses of a hormone
I don't know if that was the lawyer not knowing what he was talking about or the reporter Seeking DraaaMaaa In This Heartwrenching Story Of The Poor Autistic Boy With Tits who originally misstated the facts.
However, in 2006, the FDA approved Risperdal's use as a schizophrenic aid for children and issued new label information that said the drug contained high levels of prolactin, a hormone that promotes breast growth, Kline said.
That is not at all what the manufacturer's information posted on their web site says. This is what it does say:
5.6 Hyperprolactinemia
As with other drugs that antagonize dopamine D2 receptors, RISPERDAL® elevates prolactin levels and the elevation persists during chronic administration. RISPERDAL® is associated with higher levels of prolactin elevation than other antipsychotic agents.
This is the link to the manufacturer's prescribing information. It is a PDF on the manufacturer's web site. That is where the hyperprolactinemia information that I pasted in above came from.

Big Pharma has done some dubious things (and I say this as somebody who depends on their products to have a chance of living a normal life), but if we're going to pillory them then let's use accurate information to do so.

--Al
 
@Alf It was his lawyer(Kline) that stated it had prolactin in it. Interesting that it doesn't actually contain it but can elevate it. That makes the judgement even more dubious.
 
I prescribe Risperdal to my patients and always explain about the risk of gynocomastia. As Alf stated, it can cause increase in prolactin by dopamine blocking but this is not a common side effect. I usually take a baseline prolactin blood level before starting and then about every month after ward until we titrate to therapeutic levels. So far only one patient has shown this side effect and we caught it early so we simply changed to another medication not likely to cause this side effect. (all meds have potential side effects so it's basically rolling the dice in that respect)

In this case it truly seems to be a money dive by the parents. What parent doesn't read the hell out of the warning inserts when their kid is on a medication? Especially an anti-psychotic? And why did it take so long for them to notice the gynocamastia? It's not a fast process.
 
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