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Consumers suing over injuries from using PoliGrip and Fixodent denture cream will seek consolidation before a multi-district litigation panel at the end of May.

The plaintiffs claim they suffered neurological damage from zinc in the products.

“Over time, the usage of large amounts of denture cream can create zinc poisoning,” said Eric Chaffin, a partner at Bernstein Liebhard in New York, who has filed 17 cases in federal and state court.

He estimates that the total number of cases nationwide will be in the hundreds.

Scott Wm Weinstein, managing partner in the mass torts and consumer class action department of Morgan & Morgan in Fort Myers, Fla., has filed two cases and is holding off on the 2,000 cases he is investigating until the MDL panel decides where the cases will be heard.

The motion seeks to consolidate the cases in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Alternative venues proposed by plaintiffs include Colorado or the Eastern District of New York, Chaffin noted.

Copper deficiency

The lawsuits allege that the dental cream that is used as an adhesive to hold dentures in place contains zinc, which causes damage to the peripheral nerves, pain in the limbs and loss of balance.

The suits - which allege product liability, negligence, failure to warn, fraud and consumer protection claims - name GlaxoSmithKline, which manufactures PoliGrip, and Proctor & Gamble, which makes Fixodent, as defendants.

In one suit filed April 27, 60-year-old Ellen Isaacs claims she suffered permanent injuries as a result of using Super PoliGrip Original.

The suit alleges that GlaxoSmithKline added zinc to its ingredients in the 1990s even after it was medically accepted that excess zinc causes copper depletion or “hypocupremia.”

“It’s well-documented that when there is too much zinc, it reduces the level of copper. The body has receptors for copper but when the body takes in excess zinc, zinc binds to those receptors and there’s nothing to carry the copper, so the copper gets expelled,” said Weinstein.

He represents 61-year-old Florida resident Ronald Beaver who claims he developed permanent neuropathy from excess zinc after using PoliGrip Extra Care with PoliSeal for 10 years.

Chaffin also cites two adverse event reports in 2005 linking PoliGrip with zinc poisoning.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers say that not all the plaintiffs are older consumers whose symptoms may be attributable to other causes.

“Don’t assume the plaintiffs are all older. One case we filed is [on behalf of] a woman in her early 30s. The cases run the gamut,” said Chaffin.

Weinstein agreed.

“There are younger people with poor dental hygiene that are using the products,” he said, noting that cases with younger plaintiffs are less complicated because they tend to have a more limited medical history.

2008 study

A 2008 study published in the journal Neurology, concluded that “denture cream contains zinc, and chronic excessive use may result in hypocupremia and serious neurologic disease.” Each of the four patients in the study with hypocupremia used “very large amounts of denture cream chronically,” the study noted.

Weinstein noted that people with ill-fitting dentures tend to use more denture cream.

Proctor & Gamble said in a statement that “a small amount of zinc is used in Fixodent to help the denture stay in place securely so our consumers can eat, chew and talk more confidently.”

The statement also said that “we are not aware of any case where denture cream has been definitively linked to a health effect from zinc.”
GlaxoSmithKline did not return a call seeking comment in time for this article.

A statement from the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, a trade association for makers of over-the-counter medications, said that the cases of zinc toxicity involve consumers who “chronically used vastly more product than instructed on product labeling, us[ing] two or more tubes of the product each week for a period of years, as opposed to one tube over the course of three to 10 weeks.”

Another defense argument may be that there is no proof that zinc from denture cream is absorbed in the body.

But Chaffin plans to point to tests showing elevated zinc levels and low copper levels in the plaintiffs’ blood.

He also noted that when individuals stop using use denture cream, their zinc and copper levels begin to normalize, even though the neurological damage is permanent.

Questions or comments can be directed to the writer at: sylvia.hsieh@lawyersusaonline.com

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