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So you've been taking a drug and you believe the drug has hurt you. The question is do
you have a case? I'm Rand Nolen with Fleming, Nolen & Jez in Houston, Texas. The answer
to whether or not you have a case depends on a lot of variables and one of them is the
learned intermediary doctrine. And what is that? The learned intermediary doctrine is
a doctrine of law that says that there is someone standing between you and the pharmaceutical
company who prescribed the medication that usually is a doctor and that's the learned
intermediary. That is the person who is charged with knowledge of the drug, that's who the
drug company directly communicates with, that's who the drug company has interactions with,
who they update, who they advise with the appropriateness of their particular drug.
And so he or she is a learned intermediary in the eyes of the law. But the learned intermediary
doctrine is not just limited to did they tell the doctor. The question then becomes did
the doctor tell you. That becomes key testimony in any sort of pharmaceutical case and any
sort of pharmaceutical litigation. That answer can determine whether or not you prevail in
your case or not. So the doctor's testimony becomes key. Will the doctor -- when asked
-- say that had he other information that wasn't provided by the pharmaceutical company
he wouldn't have prescribed the medication? If the answer to that is that he would still
prescribe the medication, no matter what the pharmaceutical company told him no matter
how bad the risk and he would make that assessment of risk benefit and always come down on the
side that the drug was beneficial despite whatever risk existed, then the answer is
you're going to lose your case. That's what's going to happen in most jurisdictions. You're
not going to be able to prevail because the doctor is saying that no matter what he would
have still prescribed the medication. Some jurisdictions do allow exceptions to that
and those exceptions occur when the patient says well had I known the risk, had those
risks been communicated to me, I wouldn't have taken the drug. Some jurisdictions will
allow that to suffice. But many jurisdictions will say that the learned intermediary, who's
the person who prescribed the drug, is the be all and end all of the case. So as he says
or she says, "Nope. I would still prescribe it, no matter what. No matter what risks were
known. No matter what risks were communicated to me by the pharmaceutical company" then
you may have a problem. I'm Rand Nolen with Fleming, Nolen & Jez. If you have questions,
call us. We answer questions like these every day and these are tough questions. Thank you
for watching.