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› $150,000,000 verdict in personal injury case
A federal study revealed that the pharmaceutical company Wyeth paid ghostwriters to write articles for medical journals that were favorable to the drug company’s hormone replacement therapy (HRT) Prempro, even after the drug was found to raise a woman’s risk for breast cancer, according to the New York Times.
In the 1960s, a New York gynecologist wrote a book called “Feminine Forever,” in which he recommended estrogen for menopause, stating that women on the hormone replacement drug “will be much more pleasant to live with and will not become dull and unattractive.”
Wyeth Pharmaceuticals caught wind of the book and its author’s claims that estrogen reduced a woman’s risk for both breast and genital cancers, and began distributing the book to physicians across the country. Soon after, sales of Wyeth’s HRT drug Premarin took off, growing to more than 30 million prescriptions each year.
Postmenopausal women who experience a slump in their sex drive may rediscover their libido by taking the male sex hormone testosterone. However, researchers are unsure if there may be a link between the use of testosterone and breast cancer, according to FoodConsumer.org.
Ovarian cancer is the deadliest of all gynecologic cancers, expected to kill about 15,000 women in 2008, according to the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance. Risk factors remain a mystery; however, researchers believe a woman is at increased risk if she has a family history of cancer, personal history of cancer, is older than 55, has never been pregnant, and has used menopausal hormone therapy.
According to the World Health Organization, breast cancer is the most common cancer worldwide among women. It is the fifth most deadly cancer, killing about 502,000 people per year. All of us know a family who has had to deal with this most serious problem.
A Jasper County woman has filed a federal lawsuit against Pfizer and Wyeth, claiming the hormone therapy drugs manufactured by the pharmaceutical companies caused her breast cancer.
Scharlotte Fitzgerald says she began taking hormone replacement drugs in 1994. In 2001 she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Fitzgerald and her husband Larry filed a personal injury suit against the drug companies in the Beaumont Division of the Eastern District of Texas on Nov. 2. They are seeking in excess of $75,000 in damages.
“This lawsuit asserts claims for negligence; strict product liability for failure to warn, strict product liability for design defect; and breach of implied warranty against the defendants responsible for the design, manufacture, production, testing, study, inspection, mixture, labeling, marketing, advertising, sales, promotion and/or distribution of those hormone therapy products that caused her breast cancer,” the plaintiffs’ original complaint states.
The plaintiffs’ claim that the defendants had an obligation to provide warnings about risks and side effects of their hormone therapy drugs as soon as it was aware of them. The suit alleges that the drug companies failed to disclose “an increased incidence and risk of strokes, blood clots, heart attacks, breast cancers and ovarian cancer from these drugs.”
Plaintiffs also assert that the defendants made claims regarding health benefits of the drugs and should have known “that these claims were false and misleading.”
The defendants also gave a false impression that adequate pre-marketing clinical testing and research and post-marketing surveillance had been done, the plaintiffs claim.
“Plaintiff would not have ingested the hormone therapy drugs … or would have discontinued their use, or would have used safer alternative methods, had defendants disclosed the true health consequences, risks, and adverse effects, including the increased incidence and risk of breast cancer and other illnesses, caused by their hormone drugs,” the complaint states.
In the first claim against defendants, the plaintiff alleges that the companies were negligent by failing to exercise reasonable care in designing, manufacturing, testing and distributing the hormone replacement drugs.
“Defendants knew or should have known that their hormone therapy drugs caused unreasonable harm and dangerous side effects that many users would be unable to remedy by any means,” the petition states. “Despite this, defendants continued to promote and market their hormone therapy drugs for use by consumers, including plaintiff, when safer and more effective methods of countering the negative health effects of menopause were available.”
The petition also includes claims for strict liability through failure to warn and design defect.
“These hormone therapy drugs were each dangerous to an extent beyond that which would be contemplated by the ordinary consumer who purchased them,” the suit says. “They were more dangerous than plaintiff contemplated. The risk of each of these hormone therapy drugs outweighs its utility.”
The companies also breached implied warranty, the suit said, because the sold the drugs as being of “merchantable quality and safe and fit for their intended use.”
Scharlette Fitzgerald is seeking damages to exceed $75,000, attorney fees, costs of suit and other relief that the court may deem just and proper.
Her husband, Larry Fitzgerald is also seeking monetary damages for his loss of spousal services, society and companionship.
A North Dakota woman has filed a federal lawsuit against several pharmaceutical companies, claiming the hormone replacement drugs she was prescribed led to breast cancer. Sharon Hesch of Minot, is seeking at least $75,000 and additional punitive damages against Wyeth Inc., Wyeth Pharmaceuticals Inc., Pharmacia and Upjohn Co., and Pfizer, Inc. Hesch’’s husband, James, is included as a plaintiff.
Reno, Nev., (AP) – A jury has levied a $134.5 million judgment against the pharmaceutical maker Wyeth in a lawsuit filed by three Nevada women who contended that the company’s hormone-replacement drugs had caused their breast cancer.
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