Fresenius Faces Another Lawsuit Involving GranuFlo

Facing another lawsuit due to its scandal-ridden product, Fresenius has to deal with a GranuFlo lawsuit an affected patient has lodged in court.  The plaintiff alleged to have been harmed by alkali dosing errors associated with GranuFlo. For pre-trial proceedings, a court has consolidated Fresenius lawsuits into a multidistrict litigation.

The lawsuit was lodged in court by, Ronnie Glasper.  He was prescribed Fresenius’s Naturalyte and/or GranuFlo in his dialysis treatments in a Louisiana Fresenius Medical Care center. Consequently, he suffered a heart attack and stroke.

The plaintiff in this lawsuit accuses Fresenius for allegedly hiding what it knows about the dangers that patients could suffer from Naturalyte GranuFlo (or Naturalyte).  The plaintiff also alleges in his lawsuit that Fresenius was negligent, with intent to defraud, with the product testing by saying that GranuFlo is safe.  Furthermore, the plaintiff questions the company as to whether proper testing has been conducted on the product in order to establish the risks associated with Naturalyte or GranuFlo.

On November 4, 2011, Ronnie Glasper’s claims relate, Fresenius issued an internal memo and sent it to Fresenius medical directors and physicians.  It was to warn on the health dangers a patient could be exposed to in using Naturalyte and GranuFlo.  However, this warning was not shared to the FDA.  Nonetheless, the risks linked to Naturalyte and GranuFlo were known in a case-control study involving patients of hemodialysis. It was noted in the memo, according to the plaintiff’s allegation, that the study revealed a tendency for an increased pre-dialysis bicarbonate levels to occur and also the risk of apparent alkalosis resulting with about six to eight times greater chance of fatal cardiac arrest.

Unfortunately, the problem with the memo, according to the plaintiff, is that Fresenius failed to send the memo to the facility where he received treatment, nor did his physician received it, though it was sent to some of other medical facilities. In some other reports, there were patients who suffered from the effects of high blood serum bicarbonate levels.  The condition can be fatal and may also result in cardiac arrhythmias, cardiopulmonary arrest, stroke and other serious health complications to those who received Naturalyte or GranuFlo.

Following the staggering court claims being filed against Fresenuis, personal injury law firms are starting to put up online legal centers catering to those who might want to lodge a lawsuit against the company over GranuFlo side effects.  Those who are alleging they were seriously harmed by the use of GranuFlo and Naturalyte may contact these law firms for free legal help, such as Rottenstein Law Group at www.rotlaw.com. There are now eleven federal lawsuits, as of this writing, reportedly consolidated to MDL 2428 in the US District Court, District of Massachusetts. The MDL is identified as In re: Fresenius GranuFlo/NaturaLyte Dialysate Products Liability Litigation.