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Patient says hepatitis lawsuit just start of public safety battle
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Gary Thompson/LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Henry Chanin on Monday discusses his battle with hepatitis C and his lawsuit against two drug companies. » Buy this photo
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LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
His students at The Meadows School don't look at him quite the same now.
Not after his face has been plastered on television screens and his name has been in news headlines from Las Vegas to Wall Street.
"Now I'm a celebrity. Not just a headmaster, but some guy who's been on TV," Henry Chanin said Monday, three days after a jury awarded him and his wife $500 million.
Chanin said he never sought the spotlight or the money when he sued the two drug companies who made and sold the anesthetic linked to Southern Nevada's hepatitis C outbreak.
The lawsuit, he said, was about making sure the drug companies changed in the name of public safety.
"We're dealing with human lives here, and if they could do anything to make their products safer, they ought to," Chanin said at the office of his lawyer, Robert Eglet.
Chanin, 62, and his wife, Lorraine, had sued the Teva Parenteral Medicine and Baxter Healthcare Services on several product liability claims related to propofol, a popular anesthetic that was used at the Desert Shadow Endoscopy Center when he was infected with hepatitis C in 2006.
His case was one of nine linked to two Las Vegas endoscopy clinics by health officials who in 2008 notified 50,000 patients about possible exposure to hepatitis, HIV and other blood-borne diseases because of unsafe injection practices at the clinics run by Dr. Dipak Desai.
Their lawyers argued that the drug packaging did not include appropriate warnings against reusing vials between patients and that the 50-milliliter vials of propofol should not have been sold to endoscopy centers because they tempted nurses to reuse the vials instead of throwing away leftover sedative.
Despite previous outbreaks and knowledge that 50-milliliter vials were being misused, the companies continued to make and sell them to the endoscopy centers because they were more profitable than safer, 10-milliliter vials, the Chanins' lawyers argued during the three-week trial.
"This was an issue of the drug companies putting out a defective product, not whether there was negligence or not," Eglet said.
A jury found the companies liable and awarded the Chanins $5.1 million in compensatory damages and $500 million in punitive damages against Teva and Baxter.
Teva plans to appeal.
"The label for its propofol product clearly states that it is for single patient use only and that aseptic procedures should be used at all times," the company said in a statement from its headquarters in Jerusalem. "Teva believes that the evidence clearly showed that if the plaintiff contracted hepatitis as alleged, it was because a properly labeled product was blatantly misused at the clinic in question."
Chanin said he hoped the large verdict would send a message across the world, and it seems it did.
"We're on the radar screen," he said.
Chanin knows the victory was just round one of what he expects to be a drawn-out legal battle, starting with post-trial motions and an official appeal in the next few months.
He already has invested more that two years in the fight, but he said he won't be satisfied until every other infected patient is compensated by the drug companies who stood by while hepatitis outbreaks continued around the world.
"By golly, the medical professionals in Las Vegas let everyone down," Chanin said. "But they haven't been traveling around the world causing these outbreaks."
Contact reporter Brian Haynes at bhaynes@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0281.
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I hope the rest of the infected people get the same amount. Corp America has been f--king the Americain public for the past 30 years.
OK ALL OF YOU PEOPLE FROM PUPO TO JOHN FROM DOWNTOWN IF YOU HAD A BRAIN, YOU WOULD BE DANGEROUS.
YOU ARE THE TYPE OF PARENTS, IF YOU ARE ONE THAT IF YOUR CHILD GOT INTO TROUBLE WITH SEVERAL OTHER CHILDREN, IT WOULD BE THERE FAULT, NOT YOUR CHILD.
YOU ALL SHOULD BE LAW PROFESSORS BECAUSE YOU KNOW IT ALL!!!!
ITS FUNNY, I DIDN'T SEE ANY OF YOU DOPES AT THE TRIAL, OH I FORGOT, YOU KNOW IT ALL.
ITS TOO BAD YOU CAN'T READ WHAT IS & HAS BEEN WRITTEN BECAUSE YOU JUST MIGHT HAVE A BETTER UNDERSTANDING.
THIS PART OF THE LEGAL PROCESS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE DRS., OR OTHER PEOPLE. THERE TRIAL IS COMMING. ONE THING AT A TIME.
JUST REMEMBER, THE NEXT TIME YOU HAVE A PROCEDURE AT A CLINIC & THEY PUT YOU UNDER, WE ARE TRYING TO PROTECT YOU.
OUR MAIN CAUSE IS TO MAKE THE DRUG COMPANY ACCOUNTABLE FOR YOUR SAFETY.
PLEASE DO YOUR HOMEWORK BEFORE OPENING YOUR MOUTH. THAT WAY YOU DON'T MAKE YOURSELF LOOK DUMB
The Chanins are idiots and any parent that sends their children to his school next year are idiots as well. I would not want a man like that even talking to my kids. And Eglet's statement that "this was an issue of the drug companies putting out a defective product" is a reason to disbar him. There was nothing defective about the product , what was defective was the level of medical care given to these people. Put the doctors and nurses in prison.
This case is setting a bad precedence for every manufacture in this country. A manufacture can only do so much when it comes to labeling and safety, its up to the people authorized to use the product to ensure it safe and proper use. Mr. Chanin hope this case will change labeling and the use of the product, propofol has been used for years and there has not been an out break like the one in Southern Nevada anywhere. The vial was contaminated by the doctors and technicians using it, you don’t reuse needles, even needles come with safety instructions that were ignored. The vials had nothing to do with Chanin’s hepatitis. The jury in cases like this are not sophisticated enough to determine every aspect of the case other than a man contracts an illness and must pay. This case may not be about money to Mr. Chanin but his attorney sure made out, remember most attorney’s charge 40 to 45 percent.