Defective drugs
Dear WDDTY
Can I congratulate you on your 50th edition? In your Viewpoint ("The right to remain silent") you omit reference to the Consumer Protection Act, which covers pharmaceuticals. The requirement there is to show that the manufacturers have produced a defective product. If a side effect was suffered from a drug which was not revealed in the drug's data sheet, then the drug could possibly be classed as defective.
The manufacturers would probably argue that the side effect emerged during the marketing of the drug. In order to overturn this defence the injured person would have to show that the manufacturers knew or ought to have known all along that this was a side effect and was not simply something which emerged only after the drug was on the market. Paul Balen, Freeth Cartwright Hunt Dickins, solicitors, Nottingham.....