Suit Links Baycol With Deadly Side Effect

The family of an Oklahoma man who died of kidney failure after taking cholesterol drug Baycol is suing the drug’s U.S. manufacturer, Bayer Corp., a family attorney said Tuesday.

It was the first announcement of a U.S. suit linking Baycol with deceased patients who took the drug and the first suit in which class-action status is being sought, said the lawyer, Don Strong of Strong, Martin & Associates.

Bayer Corp.’s parent, Bayer of Germany, withdrew Baycol from the market last week over concerns about potentially deadly side effects, including muscle-cell breakdown. The chemicals and drugs manufacturer said Monday that 52 deaths worldwide had been linked to the drug.

The suit claims, among other things, that Baycol “was defective at the time of its manufacture, distribution and sale,” and was “unreasonably dangerous to a person taking the medication.”

A spokeswoman for Bayer said the company does not comment on litigation.

Industry watchers expect other lawsuits in the fallout of the Baycol recall, just as lawsuits followed when diet drug fen-phen and diabetes medicine Rezulin were pulled from the market.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, requests actual and punitive damages in an amount to be determined.