EDMONTON – Lawyers in Edmonton and Montreal have filed a claim against Apotex, the maker of Alysena 28, the birth control pill that was recalled in April.
Health Canada issued a recall notice for Alysena 28 on April 8 after it was discovered packages contained two rows of placebo pills instead of just one.
The lawsuit, filed by the Merchant Law Group, is seeking unspecified damages for women who became pregnant while taking the pills.
“Apotex didn’t disclose… didn’t put out what’s called a Class One Recall when they knew they had a problem,” explains Tony Merchant, a lawyer with Merchant Law Group.
“Part of the delay in an appropriate recall was that the public doesn’t know that they’ve got a product that isn’t effective and there may be people still using this drug.”
“Here we have Apotex sending tens of thousands of blister packs to people where everybody in the operation should have known you can’t be sending 14 white and 14 pink. Everybody in the operation should have known that they were sending out products that were going to cause unwanted pregnancies, and all the problems that are besetting Canadians as a result,” says Merchant.
He adds more than a dozen people have contacted the Merchant Law Group who became pregnant while taking the pills, including one woman from Strathmore, Alberta.
He says there are a number of reasons women may want to be part of the class action.
“A lot of women were pregnant and continued to take the drug, which is very dangerous for the unborn child.”
“If they have the child, there may be huge compensation because now they’re looking after a child going into the future,” explains Merchant.
“If they have the child and the child has … physical problems – there’s one case from Quebec where the damages awarded were $1.6 million – so depending upon the total impact, different kinds of damages.”
He says the compensation will depend on each individual case and will be different for each plaintiff.
Merchant explains the lawsuit is being filed in Alberta because the province allows plaintiffs from across Canada to be included under one class action suit.
This is the second class action suit filed in response to the recall.
In late April, a law firm in Thunder Bay, Ontario launched an $800 million class action lawsuit against Apotex; claiming 40 women are now pregnant.
“Over the last couple of weeks, our website and other forms of social media inputs have been inundated with calls from concerned women and potential claimants,” Christopher Watkins, with Watkins Law Professional Corporation, said in a statement.
His colleague, Sandy Alexander Zaitzeff said that so far, 40 pregnancies and four abortions have occurred. About 60 women from across Canada have joined the class action.
“We have well over 25 women who now claim to have become wrongfully pregnant while taking the drug Alysena. We have hundreds more who have contacted us and expressed concern and trauma and are in a waiting game.”
About 50,000 packets of the product with the recalled lot number LF01899A was distributed across Canada, except for in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
Days later, the recall was expanded to include 11 additional lots of the pill, but only as a precautionary measure.
Apotex spokesperson Elie Betito told Global News in April that the company will not comment on legal proceedings before the court.
On Thursday, in response to another request for comment from Global News, Apotex echoed the stance in a statement:
“Apotex is aware of proposed class action law suits in Canada regarding Alysena 28. However, we do not comment on matters that are subject to litigation or before the courts.”
With files from Carmen Chai and Tom Vernon, Global News
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