Stribild Lawsuit Attorneys

Gilead Sciences Inc. was recently found to have distributed defective medication to people living with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) with full knowledge of the harm that the drug could do to their bodies.

Many of Gilead Sciences Inc. drugs that contain tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) are now under scrutiny as claims of bone and kidney complications caused by the company’s products. At the top of this list is the drug, Stribild.

If you or someone you love has taken this drug and been affected by painful bone and kidney side effects, the Stribild injury lawsuit attorneys of Onder Law Firm want to assist you in your fight. We are ready to help you get your life back from the hands of a greedy pharmaceutical company looking to make money off of your expense.

Contact our experienced and dedicated Stribild injury lawsuit attorneys at (314) 310-7924 now to set up your FREE, no-obligation legal consultation.

The Basics of Product Liability

Users of Stribild are seeking experienced attorneys to represent their claims that Gilead Sciences Inc. knowingly put them in harm’s way by withholding a safer alternative to maximize profits off of their patented TDF-based medications.

From a legal standpoint, defective products like Stribild must fall into three main categories of product liability that a lawyer must consider in order to provide factually accurate litigation designed to win maximum monetary compensation.

Those categories are:

Defective Design – The user’s injury was caused by a defect in the product that was used.

Manufacturing Defect – There was a defect in the manufacturing process which resulted in the injury sustained by the user. This particular category only focuses on how the product caused your injury, not if the company intended to neglect or harm the user.

Lack of Adequate Warning or Instructions – Products that have an inherent risk of danger (e.g. toxic substances, choking hazards, or hot elements to name a few) need adequate warnings and/or instructions to keep the user safe. If the product lacks this information or the information is unclear or vague, the company may be held liable.

Contact us today at (314) 310-7924 for experienced legal assistance that can help you navigate through all the complexities of product liability law.

What is Stribild?

Stribild is an antiretroviral medication that was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2012 and designed to reduce the replication of HIV-infected cells within people living with the virus or people that are at a high risk of contracting the virus.

Stribild consists of four separate drugs combined:

Viread (tenofovir disoproxil fumarate)
Vitekta (elvitegravir)
Tybost (cobicistat)
Emtriva (emtricitabine)

Stribild consists of an integrase inhibitor and two nucleotide/nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors. The drug also contains a pharmaceutical enhancer that improves the effectiveness of the other drugs. Out of all the listed drugs above, tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) is what reduces the activity of the hormone reverse transcriptase in order to stop the growth or spread of HIV.

It is also the main cause behind users’ bone, kidney, and dental complications.

If you or someone you love takes Stribild or any other TDF-based medication and are suffering health complications, contact the Stribild injury lawsuit attorneys of Onder Law Firm today at (314) 310-7924 to set up your FREE legal consultation.

Overview of HIV Statistics in the United States

Since Stribild is used to prevent the growth and spread of HIV, many people living with the condition in the United States are the primary users of this drug, and thus are most at risk of developing painful side effects.

Approximately 1.1 million people are living with HIV in the U.S. Roughly 14 percent of those infected do not know. Additionally, an estimated 38,739 individuals were diagnosed with HIV in 2016.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 66 percent of all 2017 HIV diagnoses in the U.S. occurred in the gay and bisexual male population.

Heterosexual contact was the second-most leading factor for contraction of HIV, falling at 24 percent of the population of people living with the virus.

Outside of sexual transmission, 6 percent of the population living with HIV contracted the virus from injection drug use. Male-to-Male sexual contact and injection drug use was equal to 3 percent of this number.

The largest groups affected by HIV in the U.S. were shown to be people of color. The CDC study indicated that African-Americans are the most affected by HIV, with this demographic accounting for 43 percent of all new HIV diagnoses. Hispanic/Latinx made up around 26 percent of new HIV diagnoses in 2017 as well, equal to new diagnoses found in Whites.

2016 saw nearly 15,807 people living with HIV perish, either by the virus or a related health issue.

The top five states with the highest HIV diagnoses include:

Georgia with a rate of 24.9 diagnoses per 100,000 people.
Florida with a rate of 22.9 diagnoses per 100,000 people.
Louisiana with a rate of 22.1 diagnoses per 100,000 people.
Nevada with a rate of 16.5 diagnoses per 100,000 people.
Texas with a rate of 15.4 diagnoses per 100,000 people.

These statistics of people living with HIV give us a clear indication of just how many people are potentially affected by the negative side effects of Stribild, if they are indeed taking the antiretroviral.

However, these numbers do NOT account for the thousands of other people who do not have HIV but use Stribild to prevent the spread of the virus from their partners (serodiscordant couples) or their occupation (nurses and prison guards).

Gilead’s Recent Legal Trouble

Since Gilead opened their doors 30 years ago, they have been the target of numerous lawsuits, many alleging that the company has conducted questionable business practices including:

Paid off personnel to facilitate writing prescriptions for their medications.
Acquired contaminated active ingredients for their medications from an unapproved source in China.
Funneled kickbacks to pay off doctors’ yearly salaries, fund upgrades to laboratory equipment, and upgraded medical software in order to sell their medications.

However, recent lawsuits filed against the company allege that Gilead withheld a safer alternative to their TDF-based products that worked just as effectively and at a much lower, safer doses. This medication — known as tenofovir alafenamide fumarate (TAF) — was shelved early on during the manufacturing process by Gilead around the same time the company had manufactured TDF.

This allowed Gilead to keep their patent on TDF and sell it at exorbitant prices. Over time, the company earned around $11 billion a year selling something that they knew would harm the very people they were meant to treat.

The lawsuits, filed by two gentlemen that were harmed by Gilead’s other TDF-based medication called Truvada, also filed a class-action lawsuit so that others who were harmed by their products could seek out compensation.

In the case of Stribild, one of its many drugs is TDF, which has recently been linked to the development of bone, kidney, and dental complications. Since this is clearly a case of negligence, many people living with or affected by HIV are coming forward with their experiences and stories about using this medication.

This ongoing lawsuit does much more than earn the compensation consumers need to properly recover. It sends a message to pharmaceutical companies that they will not be allowed to take advantage of innocent victims and that they will have to face the legal consequences of their actions.

Contact our law office right now at (314) 310-7924 to set up your FREE, no-obligation legal consultation.

The Side Effects and Complications Caused by Stribild

To effectively work at stopping the growth or spread of HIV in those that live with the virus or those that are at high risk of contracting it, large doses of TDF must be taken. Because so much TDF is taken, the excess often wreaks havoc on the user’s body.

For starters, the excessive TDF levels available in Stribild can cause slight increases to serum creatinine, which is usually the sign of kidney toxicity that can lead to:

Chronic Kidney Disease
Declining Kidney Function/Decreased Urination
Acute Kidney Injury
Acute Renal Failure
Fanconi Syndrome
Kidney Failure

Aside from kidney damage and eventual failure, TDF can drain bones of the vital minerals they need to stay strong. Calcium is often lost at such a rate that bone regeneration becomes negligible. In time, this loss of bone density can leave behind bones that are brittle and easy to fracture, eventually causing:

Discomfort in Extremities
Decreased Bone Mineral Density
Bone Deterioration or Osteoporosis
Bone Loss or Osteopenia
Dental Complications (e.g. Tooth Decay and Loss)
Bone Fractures

The loss of bone density can also alter your oral health, causing tooth loss as the jaw becomes too weak to correctly anchor the teeth in place. To make matters worse, those that are suffering from preexisting conditions that affect bone or kidneys and are taking Stribild are at more of a risk of worsening their conditions.