A St. Louis County jury awarded $5 million to a mother whose daughter died because of allegedly being overprescribed an attention deficit disorder medication.
Gateway Psychiatric Group and Dr. Gordon Robinson were ordered to pay the sum to Debra Jean Pyzyk who blamed the overuse of Vyvanse for her daughter Kristin Pyzyk’s March 2016 fatal stroke.
One local lawyer hopes that doctors are put on notice by the multimillion-dollar jury award.
“This issue has been going on for 20 years or so,” said Rufus Tate Jr, a consumer protection attorney. “They just give them to anybody. Basically, they overprescribe and don’t watch.”
The cardiovascular risks for ADD, also known as ADHD, medications include heart attack, stroke, hypertension, palpitations, and arrhythmia.
Pyzyk, who was just 35 years old when she died, struggled with addiction and alcohol dependence.
As previously reported, Pyzyk was a resident at a recovery center where she was being treated for alcoholism and Adderall abuse.
Pyzyk's mother did not respond to requests for comment.
In 2013, Robinson began treating Pyzyk, according to the complaint, and it was during that time that Pyzyk was allegedly prescribed ‘excessive’ amounts of Vyvanse even though she had a history of amphetamine addiction.
Adderall is an amphetamine that is prescribed to treat ADD while Vyvanse is a stimulant used to treat binge eating disorders and ADD.
The jury made its decision after a week-long trial.
Robinson did not respond to requests for comment but his attorney argued in court documents that there had been no positive blood screening for drugs and no autopsy.
“It's always good to see St. Louis County coming in with those kinds of numbers,” Tate told the St. Louis Record. “They're not known for giving away million-dollar jury awards. The city is but not the county.”
St. Louis Circuit Court historically has allowed forum shopping and junk science to permeate, which can lead to ‘nuclear’ verdicts, according to the American Tort Reform Foundation.
St. Louis landed eighth on ATRF's 2023 Judicial Hellhole list, which documents venues where civil cases are adjudicated in a way that is perceived to be unfair, unbalanced, or disadvantageous to defendants. In previous years, St. Louis scored the top spot partly because the state of Missouri is home to more than 168 drug manufacturers, including Sanofi-Aventis, Eli Lilly & CO, and Hoffmann-La Roche Inc.