Youhaverights.com Legal Topics Podcast

On November 5, 2007 Bayer AG announced they were removing their blood clotting drug Trasylol (aprotinin) from the market worldwide. While Bayer said the recall was not yet permanent, it is the first time the company publically acknowledged that the drug may be dangerous. Bayer AG said they decided to remove Trasylol from the market after a Canadian study revealed that the drug increased the risk of kidney damage, heart attack, stroke and death and was not more effective than competing medications. However, this recently released study was not the first study that clearly illustrated the risks of Trasylol. In January 2006 a prominent medical journal published the results of two older studies which both showed the dangers or Trasylol. One of these studies was an internal Bayer AG study that was not presented to the FDA. CBS recently reported on their popular program 60 minutes that a researcher estimates that 22,000 patients could have been saved if the FDA removed the heart surgery drug Trasylol two years ago,