World’s Most Dangerous Drug?

I was reading this week about a woman in New Hampshire suing a major pharmaceutical company for $24 million in damages. We’ve become an overly lawsuit happy society, but as I read the details of this one I couldn’t help but think this lady has a serious case. Karen Bartlett, who was an otherwise healthy 45-year old woman, started taking the prescription drug Clinirol (Sulindac) for shoulder pain. Two weeks later she was admitted to a local hospital with a growing rash and complaining of a feeling of “pebbles” under her eyelids and in her throat. Five hospitals and nearly four months later, 65% of Karen’s skin had been burned off her body. Her throat, stomach and lungs were painfully seared. And also as a result of the Stevens-Johnson Syndrome / Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis (SJS/TEN) the drug apparently induced, she is now permanently disfigured and legally blind.