Kia Franklin

Civil Justice Rx for Pharm Co Whose Drug, Jury Says, Caused Breast Cancer

The other day, a Reno Nevada jury awarded three women a total of $134.5 million in their lawsuit against Wyeth pharmaceutical company. These are the latest lawsuits involving the drugs Premarin, an estrogen replacement, and Prempro, a combination of estrogen and progestin. The drugs are prescribed to women to ease symptoms of menopause. The jury found the company “acted with ‘fraud or malice’, was negligent, and concealed a “material fact” about the safety of the drugs which the jury also said were defective,” according to this article.

Today, the jury will consider whether to assess punitive damages against Wyeth for marketing the drug. This may be just the dose of reality the company needs about the costs of their negligence, but it can never fully repay the families for their suffering.

In other news, Wyeth and other companies are pulling out some of their children’s cold medications. A list of medicines being withdrawn from the market is available in the NY Times.

Posted at 1:14 PM, Oct 12, 2007 in Civil Justice | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)