Duke Duked on the Safety of Xarelto?

According to the New York Times, researchers at Duke may have been misled by Johnson & Johnson and Bayer Pharmaceuticals regarding the safety of the anti-clotting drug Xarelto. The allegations are cast by plaintiff’s lawyers who have been pursuing product liability cases alleging that Xarelto has been linked to uncontrollable bleeding, and are contained in a footnote in a pleading by the plaintiffs. The independence of medical studies has come into question in recent years, with funding for some of the studies emanating from the same entities which the research team are supposed to be independent from. The allegations in this Xarelto case stem from an article primarily authored by Duke researchers that was published in The New England Journal of Medicine that omitted significant laboratory data. As of this writing, Duke and J&J deny these allegations and Bayer did not comment. The claim stems from allegations that the significant data was “overlooked” in the present article, but was furnished to various regulators. Meanwhile, lawsuits are mounting up with over 5,000 filed cases, and 10% of them are alleged Xarelto deaths.