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Editor: Robert Binstock
Profession: Paxil Side Effect Attorney

Category: Paxil News

Thursday, a Judge said he will approve a $64 million class action Paxil lawsuit to reimburse parents who thought they had found a fix for their depressed teens with the drug Paxil, a drug later blamed for suicides and suicidal thoughts.

The settlement was given preliminary approval months ago in Madison County Circuit Court but was threatened by objection from over a dozen lawyers from several law firms.

Attorneys and activists came from all over to argue terms of the lawsuit. The arguing stalled an approval hearing on Wednesday. The next day lawyers came with a revised settlement that they believed would satisfy everyone involved.

At issue were how much Paxil's creator, GlaxoSmithKline, would actually pay and how much the attorneys in this and other cases would take home. The drug maker agreed to the $63.8 million settlement, which includes the cost to publicize and administer it -- estimated at $4 million -- and more than $16 million in attorneys fees. The remainder, a little more than $43 million, would reimburse consumers for out-of-pocket expenses.

Paxil was once coined the answer to teen depression. It was later believed to have increased the risk of suicidal thinking, some of whom did take their lives. In 2004, public outrage pushed the FDA to call for stricter warnings on antidepressants.

Sales of Paxil specifically for minors totaled more than $500 million, according to GlaxoSmithKline's lawyers, and the corporation has repeatedly been sued for not revealing all that it knew about the drug.