Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman handles pharmaceutical drug product liability litigation and has represented thousands of victims of drug-induced injury and death. The firm has represented victims of harmful drugs for more than 20 years.

We have extensive experience in litigating personal injury, wrongful death and consumer class action cases against major drug companies, including Pfizer (the maker of Zoloft). Baum Hedlund has the longest track-record of handling SSRI antidepressant litigation. We have seen the harm antidepressants can cause and the extent to which drug companies will go to protect their enormously profitable drugs.

PPHN Cases

Baum Hedlund currently represents numerous families whose children were born with Persistent Pulmonary Hypertension of the Newborn (PPHN) after their mothers' ingestion of Zoloft during pregnancy.

Persistent Pulmonary Hypertension of the newborn (PPHN), is a life-threatening disorder in which the newborn’s arteries to the lungs remain constricted after delivery, limiting the amount of blood flow to the lungs and therefore the amount of oxygen into the bloodstream. Ten percent to 20 percent of infants with PPHN will end up dying even if they receive treatment.

A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) by Christina Chambers of the University of California, San Diego, found a sixfold increased risk of persistent pulmonary hypertension (PPH) in infants born to mothers who took an antidepressant in the last trimester of pregnancy. On July 19, 2006, the FDA issued a Public Health Advisory for Prozac and several other antidepressants based on this study.

To find out more about antidepressants and PPHN,
please visit www.pphnlawyers.com.

Birth Defects

Since September 2005, information has been emerging that the antidepressant Paxil may cause birth defects, including cardiac (heart), pulmonary (lung), craniosynostosis (abnormally shaped skull) and infant omphalocele (abdominal wall defects). Baum Hedlund is investigating whether or not other antidepressants, such as Zoloft, can cause these birth defects as well.

To find out more about antidepressants and birth defects,
please visit www.antidepressantbirthdefects.com.

Suicide/Suicide Attempt Cases

Included among the thousands of clients Baum Hedlund has represented in drug injury and wrongful death cases are some high profile ones, such as 1960's rock star Del Shannon who committed suicide while taking the antidepressant Prozac; comedian Phil Hartman whose wife was taking Zoloft when she shot her husband and subsequently shot herself while their children were in another room; and activist, Kim Witczak, featured in Fortune Magazine, whose 37-year-old husband Tim "Woody" Witczak hung himself after five weeks of being on Zoloft prescribed to him for insomnia. Woody's death was the inspiration for the website www.woodymatters.com.

Beginning in 1999, Baum Hedlund filed a number of Zoloft suicide cases against Pfizer. Over the course of the next several years, Baum Hedlund was largely successful in defeating Pfizer’s efforts to dismiss the cases based on federal preemption. Pfizer and the FDA argued that Courts should not be permitted to second-guess the FDA's decision to allow a drug on the market as "safe and effective." As such, Pfizer argued the cases should be dismissed. (Motus v. Pfizer, Inc., Zikis v. Pfizer, Inc., Cartwright v. Pfizer, Inc., Witczak v. Pfizer, Inc., Miles v. Pfizer, Inc., and Szybinski v. Pfizer, Inc.)

To find out more about the adverse reactions associated with antidepressant drugs like Zoloft,
please visit www.antidepressantadversereactions.com.