Does anyone know anything about the class action suit concerning Synthroid?

45 responses total.

I have the application to become a member of the class action, but don't know
whether or not to file as such.  Also dont think much will come of the class
action suit.  I am stymied for a bit because I am not even sure where to go
to research the issue and get my facts.  I have been taking the drug for 20
years. I am also not sure I want to be part of a "frivolous" lawsuit if that
is the case.  But dont know how to find out.

Sorry, but what is synthroid?

Thyroid medication which many people have been prescribed
unnecessarily.  If you're overweight, tired, whatever, there's
an incompetent doctor somewhere who will prescribe the stuff
for you even if your thyroid tests are within normal limits.
I haven't heard about the lawsuit, but if it's the manufacturer
that's being sued (rather than all the incompetent physicians)
then I'd love to know why.

whoa, interesting. I hadn't heard of this either, and I take synthroid.
Of course, I'm pretty sure I need it, since I had a goiter and a 
radiation test, so I "saw" the evidence that my thyroid was incompetent.

For complete information and a claim form, see 

          http://thyroid.miningco.com/bllawst.htm

The suit has to do with antitrust stuff.  The text makes it clear
that synthroid's safety and effectiveness are not at issue.

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I suspect that it cost much more than $3, but that the U was either 
subsidizing it or giving it to you for cost.

I find it interesting that so many people seem to be taking this drug.

My sister takes Synthroid; her thyroid gland was removed a long time ago
due to a tumor, I think.

#3: It's the law of "deep pocket" -- manufacturer has deeper pockets than
    any doctor. 

Don't they have generics for Synthroid so you don't have to pay brand name
price?

There is actually a couple of different brand-names...but the stuff is chep
enough that it's not that big a deal...my mom pays about $6 a month for her
prescription.

There seem to be a lot of people with a low thyroid these days, Dan...and
since the darn thing is hereditary, there seem to be more and more people born
with it in them.  (sigh...time to go in for another blood test)

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 I too am related to multiple people (all women) on Synthroid...

Both of my grandmothers had thyroid trouble -- and all my maternal aunts
have had to have their thyroid glands removed because of tumours and goiters.
It was far from a surprise when I was diagnosed.  I thought I should have been
diagnosed 23 years earlier -- but doctors kept saying, in spite of my
symptoms, that my numbers were "low normal" and that they wouldn't prescribe
medication.  Within a couple of months of starting on synthroid, the symptoms
were gone.  I feel human for the first time in my life!

Maybe there are doctors who are too willing to prescribe synthroid -- but
there are certainly a lot of them who won't, even when the patient needs it.

This item now linked to the Health conference.

Since someone asked: synthroid is synthetic thyroxine, one of the
thyroid gland hormones. It is the amino acid
3-[4-(4-hydroxy-3,5-diiodophenoxy)-3,5-diiodophenyl]alanine. It exerts
a stimulating effect on metabolism. Say the chemical name ten times fast and
you don't have to take as much... 8^}

If you read carefully, you'll find that this actually isn't about litigating
a lawsuit, but about a proposed settlement.  It's almost certain that the
settlement will happen, and the money will be there whether you take it or
not.  And that money will be no more than ~$20 per person.  I don't think it's
a frivolous lawsuit, but I also don't think that $20 ought to give anyone any
guilt.  Note that you're free to sue the company yourself, once you exclude
yourself from this class action settlement.  In that case, lotza luck!  :-)

I tsure seems like Class Action suits end up benefitting no one but the
lawyers.

3-[4-(4-hydroxy-3,5-diiodophenoxy)-3,5-diiodophenyl]alanine

.....*that's* a mouthful!

Valerie: I have no idea where she gets it...I suspect through St. Joe's, since
that's whre she works...it very well might be with insurance, though...

I just refilled my synthroid RX using my Blue Cross PPO Insurance card and
I received 90 pills for $5.00.  I did ask the MD to DAW the RX so I would get
the original "Synthroid".  Lately, I notice the drug styore is substituting
generics unless the MD writes DAW on the script.

for curiosity's sake, what kind of action/reaction is there from
a 'lazy' thyroid, or whatever..
  
#3 and #13 sorta hint at it.

An underproductive thyroid does not produce enough of the thyroid hormone.
This inhibits certain bodily functions that depend on/are triggered by the
thyroid hormone, such as proper treatment of cholesterol.  Synthetic
thyroid hormone such as synthroid is prescribed to make up the difference.
This is a much, much more mild condition than having a lazy pancreas!

Some symptoms of a lazy thyroid are dry, itchy skin, exhaustion and very low
energy levels, a tendency to gain weight of very little food, severe
difficulty regulating your body temperature (usually meaning you're cold. 
Very, very cold) hair loss, often a swelling of the thyroid gland as it
strives to produce more thyroid hormone, in women,m it may lead to
amenhorreah, and did I mention exhaustion?  I also got painfully tight muscles
in my legs, which no one seems to mention in the literature, but I think may
have been related since it eased within 6 weeks of starting meds after being
a problem for many years.

And without the Synthroid I get a bulge in my neck almost as big as a breast.
Not a p[leasant sight.

It can also cause joint pain not unlike arthritis, and bad circulation.

One other way to get thyroid problems, other than having some metabolic
disorder involving hormone production, is not to ingest enough iodine.  That
is why iodine is now be added to salt all over the world.  My partner decided
that salt is unequivocally bad for you , but we were eating cheese until a
few years ago.  When we stopped, I started feeling cold all the time.  I have
since started eating seaweed, which has lots of iodine in it.
Iodine is, I think, added only to cooking salt, not to the salt used in 
processed foods. (Must have been some other sourc eof iodine in the cheese).
SOme people metabolize iodine better than others or have better hormone
producing systems.  My partner had no problems with cold.  My mother had
thyroid problems, could that be why I needed more iodine?

I have heard that there is some trace of iodine in most milk products these
days; something about an iodine compound used in cleaning the equipment,
or something like that.  (If you want precision, ask somebody else!)

Or maybe they even feed it to the cows?  At the Chelsea Farmers' Supply store
they sold vitamins and minerals for various animals, also special animal feed
mixes which might have contained vitamins.  Fascinating store.   There is
apparently a belief that iodized salt is bad for you.  'Iodine is plentiful
in the ocean, so seafood is a dependable source.  Land masses that have been
under the ocean have soils rich in iodine...the soil is iodine poor in the
area aroudn the Great Lakes
.  A new generation of children rejected iodine out of ignorance and allowed
iodine deficiences to creep back into their lives.  [That's me, I guess]. 
I also found out recently that salt in itself is an essential mineral.

Your blood has about the same concentration of salt as does seawater.

Jim says make that 'ancient seawater', the sea is now a bit saltier.  What
year did life first crawl out of the ocean?  Do you know the exact salinity
of human serum and seawater (and I think the salinity varies slightly around
the world and depending on temperature)?  How saline is insect blood?

My statement comes from "things learned when I was three".. :) But you
guys want the absolute truth, right?...OK. Seawater is 2.35% sodium
chloride (99.5% of the oceans have this composition). Normal blood serum
is 0.85% sodium chloride.  I concede the point (without even starting to
quibble over osmolality, etc). Live and learn... Sorry - your turn for
insect blood.

Maybe the ocean has become more saline since you were three?  If I succeed
in finding insect blood, I will ask you for dinosaur blood salinity.  The
public library reference desk usually gives up on my questions.

That's it. I swam in it when I was 3, and I recall it tasted like 0.85% salt.

Insects do not have blood, they have hemolymph, which does not carry oxygen
and is not in vessels.  I could not find info on salt content of it.  It is
filtered through the equivalent of kidneys, which put out ammonia in aquatic
insects, and uric acid (like birds) in most land insects.  The salinity is
regulated, but I don't know if it differs for freshwater, sea, and land
insects.  If you can find that info, you get a (virtual) prize.

I believe that the hemolymph does carry oxygen, but by diffusion from
tracheal tubes opening externally at spiracles along the abdomen. Most
insects do not have a oxygen binding blood pigment (one does).  Salt
is retained by reabsorption from the hindgut but, alas, I also could
not find a hemolymph salt concentration.

Is the pigment iron-based?  What color is it?

My inspection of my windshield in summer suggests that most insect
hemolymph is yellow to green. Here is what Grolier says: "Most
invertebrates have circulatory fluid that contains chlorocruorins (an
iron-based pigment in combination with a porphyrin), hemerythrins
(iron-based, but not with porphyrin), or hemocyanin (a copper-based
respiratory pigment). All these pigments increase the ability of the
circulating fluid to carry oxygen." Some spiders have a bluish hemolymph
because of hemocyanin. I also recall learning a long time ago that there
is a sea squirt or cucumber that has a vanadium based repiratory pigment. 

Rane, did you find Groliere on-line?  Is it that multivolume zoology
reference?  If so, I occasionally work for the person who was in charge of
translating it from German.  He is extremely competent and very nice.
(Oops, I promised to be off the phone by 14:00).

I have the CD-ROM, Release 6, of the Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss