What is a meningioma and what types of injuries qualify?

Depo-Provera has many known side effects. However, the current Depo-Provera litigation mainly involves a “signature injury” that was not properly warned against by the Depo-Provera drugmaker, Pfizer. That signature injury is cranial meningioma.

Meningiomas are tumors that have been shown by scientific studies to be caused by Depo-Provera. While meningiomas can form in the tissues surrounding the spinal cord, the signature injury for the purposes of the current litigation are meningiomas that formed in the tissues surrounding the brain – cranial meningiomas. Depending on the size and aggressiveness of the cranial meningioma, symptoms can include pain, altered vision, hearing loss, cognitive impairment, and seizures.

Cranial meningiomas must be diagnosed through computed tomography (CT) scan or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Once diagnosed, cranial meningioma sufferers frequently undergo chemotherapy, radiation treatment and surgery.

Bottom Line: You should have been diagnosed with a cranial (not just spinal) meningioma to qualify for the current Depo-Provera litigation.

How do I prove I used Depo-Provera?

The current Depo-Provera litigation involves a minimum level of usage, which is typically one year. Depo-Provera is injected every three months, so the minimum level of usage would equal four injections.

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Depo-Provera for sale back in 1992, and a related drug, Depo-SubQ Provera, was approved shortly afterward. This means that some treatment records could be decades old and may be difficult to obtain.

In those situations, claimants (mostly through their attorneys) will have to search for and try to obtain archived medical records. These searches will not just consist of the usual pharmacy records, but include physician’s records (as injections were many times administered in a doctor’s office) and insurance records (which can tend to be preserved for longer periods of time). Even if these searches eventually prove fruitless, a claimant wants to be in a position to affirm that all avenues were exhausted and ask the Court to rely upon a claimant’s affidavit or similar form of proof.

Bottom Line: You should be able to prove that you used Depo-Provera for one year (received four shots) to qualify for the current Depo-Provera litigation.

What is the current Depo-Provera litigation?

All of the federal Depo-Provera lawsuits have been consolidated into a multidistrict litigation (MDL) before Judge M. Casey Rogers in the Northern District of Florida. It is expected that the MDL will eventually consist of five to ten thousand claims.

Each of the claims in the MDL will retain their individual identities (this is not a class action), but are being consolidated for uniform pretrial proceedings and a what should be a handful of “bellwether cases.” Bellwether cases are basically test cases that are worked up for trial and primarily used to set the value of any future settlements.

Bottom Line: Most cases are being consolidated in the MDL in Florida.

How do I find a Depo-Provera attorney?

You have been diagnosed with a cranial meningioma after using Depo-Provera for at least one year and your claim will likely be filed in the MDL. You now need to talk to legal counsel with experience in MDL litigations and Depo-Provera claims.

Do your homework and research the firm you will be working with — there is a really good chance it will not be the same lawyer that handled your last speeding ticket, or the people answering the phone at the other end of one of the 800 numbers that flash across your television screen late at night.

Also, as with any claims, Pfizer will assert many defenses in the MDL. Some of these defenses can include applicable filing deadlines like statutes of limitations and repose. This basically means that the longer a claimant waits to file a lawsuit, the more likely these types of defenses could be used against that claimant.