Lawsuit Filed Against Pharmaceutical Giant Merck on Behalf of Young Man Allegedly Injured by Gardasil
„By the Children’s Health Defense Team
The law firm of Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman filed a lawsuit Wednesday against pharmaceutical giant Merck on behalf of a young man, Zachariah Otto, who was allegedly injured by Gardasil, Merck’s HPV vaccine.
The complaint seeks damages, including punitive damages, for negligence; strict liability (failure to warn); strict liability (manufacturing defect); breach of warranty; common law fraud; and violation of California’s unfair competition law.
Zachariah claims multiple Gardasil injections, which he first received at the age of 16, caused him to develop life-altering injuries, including dysautonomia, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), Orthostatic Intolerance, small fiber neuropathy, chronic fatigue syndrome, mast cell activation syndrome, autoimmune disease and fibromyalgia, as well as a constellation of other serious health issues. POTS is an autoimmune condition that impacts the autonomic nervous system (which automatically regulates critical bodily functions) and the sympathetic nervous system (which is involved in the “fight or flight” response). POTS symptoms include fainting, migraine headaches and anxiety among many other serious conditions.
The plaintiff says the Gardasil-induced injuries have made him disabled to a point where he can no longer work and cannot physically attend college. His mother says it was Merck’s intense Gardasil marketing campaign that encouraged her to have her son get the shots. Zachariah and his mother stress that had they known of the serious risks associated with this vaccine, they would have never gone forward with the shots.
“Merck fast-tracked Gardasil by presenting misleading data to the FDA and fabricating a health crisis,” says Mr. Otto’s co-counsel Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “They claimed they were ‘filling an unmet medical’ need but in reality, the only thing Merck was interested in filling was the $6 billion financial hole created by the Vioxx scandal.”
Gardasil is racking up a long list of young women and men who were similarly harmed following vaccination with Merck’s product.“
The same thing happened to us. We saw the Gardasil marketing on TV and fell for it. It‘s outrageous that Merck denies responsibility.