The maker of Zoloft (Sertraline hydrochloride), Pfizer Inc., is being sued in a consumer class action suit, filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose Division, before Magistrate Judge Paul Singh Grewal, which alleges that the patients who took the antidepressant medication experienced no more benefit than they would have done on a placebo (dummy pill). Laura Plumlee, the plaintiff (a person who is suing) said that during the three years she took Zoloft, it did not help her. Her lawyer, R. Brent Wisner, says the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) should not have approved Zoloft because Pfizer had not published some clinical trials which demonstrated that the medication was not significantly different to a placebo. Baum Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman and Pendley Baudin & Baudin & Coffin filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Plaintiff and consumers throughout the USA and California. A placebo is a dummy drug, a substance with no active ingredient taken by some participants in a clinical trial to determine whether the target drug, in this case Zoloft, is more effective. Pfizer is accused of deceptively marketing Zoloft as a “highly effective treatment for depression”, while knowing that the medication was virtually indistinguishable from a sugar pill at best.
