On the front page of its Business Day section, the New York Times (11/24, B1, Wilson) reports, "Pfizer has been ordered to pay a total of $103 million in punitive damages to two women who were found to have breast cancer after they used" the hormone drugs Premarin and Prempro. Pfizer units Pharmacia and Wyeth "marketed the drugs as a standard, long-term hormone treatment for menopausal women, until medical evidence emerged indicating that such therapy raised women's risk of breast cancer." The FDA "added black-box warnings to the drugs' labels" after the finding, "cautioning that they be used at the smallest possible doses for the shortest possible time." Now, a jury has "reached a $28 million judgment" in a case Monday, "while a judge unsealed a month-old $75 million judgment in the other case."
Lawyers for the plaintiff Monday noted, "This is just the tip of the iceberg as Wyeth faces lawsuits from more than 10,000 additional women who also claim that Wyeth's drugs gave them breast cancer," Bloomberg News (11/24, Feeley, Pearson) reports. But, a Pfizer spokesman said that "of the 34 trial-set cases to date, there have been only four plaintiffs' verdicts that have not been set aside." The Legal Intelligencer (11/24, Elliott-Engel) and the Wall Street Journal (11/24, Loftus) also covered the story.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Synthetic Hormones, Pfizer-Wyeth Lose Big Court Case
ReplyDeleteA 112 million dollar punitive award indicates outrage at the "wanton and reckless” conduct by Wyeth for pushing a cancer causing pill. This is the tip of the iceberg, as another ten thousand cases are waiting for their day in court.
Seven years ago, the 2002 WHI study revealed that PremPro causes breast cancer, and millions of women shifted away from synthetic Prempro. The result of this flight from Prempro was a dramatic decline in breast cancer rates, and a shift to the safety and efficay of bioidentical hormones..
For More:
http://jeffreydach.com/2009/11/27/synthetic-hormones-pfizerwyeth-lose-big-court-case-by-jeffrey-dach-md.aspx