Cleft palate and cleft lip birth defects have been associated with Topamax, the anti-seizure and migraine medicine, when taken by women during pregnancy.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning about Topamax, generically topiramate, in March 2011 after registry data indicated that mouth defects were 20 times more prevalent among pregnant women who used the drug.
If your child was born with a birth defect such as a cleft palate or cleft lip after the use of Topamax or topiramate, you may want to call a Topamax lawyer.
Kline & Specter, PC, a Philadelphia-based law firm, has had success in birth defect cases and pharmaceutical injury cases in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and across the country. The law firm has more than 50 attorneys, several of whom are also doctors (including two OB/GYNs), with the expertise to investigate and litigate Topamax and topiramate cases. Call 800-243-1100 for a free claim evaluation.
Topamax is an anticonvulsant drug that is used alone or with other medications to treat certain epileptic seizures and has also been approved to treat migraine headaches.
It is also prescribed “off label” to treat other forms of headaches, obesity, bipolar disorder, alcoholism, PTSD, infantile spasm, depression and autism.
The FDA warned woman of child-bearing age about possible craniofacial deformities linked to Topamax after data collected from a registry of pregnant woman showed a threefold rate of mouth defects in infants who were exposed to the drug compared with those exposed to other anti-seizure drugs. The rate was 20 times that in babies born to women who used no seizure medication.
The FDA raised Topamax and topiramate to a Pregnancy Category D status, meaning there is evidence the drug can harm a fetus, although it notes some instances in which the risk of oral defects were outweighed by the benefit of an expectant mother using the medicine.
Made by Ortho-McNeil Neurologics, a division of Johnson & Johnson, was approved in 1995 to treat seizures and in 2004 to treat migraines. It had been previously associated with certain side effects including certain birth defects and male genital defects, and also eye ailments such as acute myopia and secondary angle closure glaucoma.
Kline & Specter has won many large verdicts and settlements (See Major Victories). Founding partner Tom Kline has extensive experience in litigating birth injury cases, including the representation of children who were born with cleft palates whose mothers took the drug Bendectin prior to its withdrawal from the market, going back to the 1980's. Kline has obtained jury verdicts for children born with limb deformities, including jury verdicts of $2 million and $19.2 million."
If your child suffered a birth defect and you believe that it may have been caused by Topamax, please call our pharmaceutical injury attorneys at 800-243-1100.
