Court Revives HRT Lawsuit Against Pfizer

Pennsylvania's Superior Court reinstituted a lawsuit by finding that a woman was entitled to an exception to the two-year statute of limitations, because she couldn't have reasonably known of an alleged link between her breast cancer and hormone-replacement therapy drugs before the publication of the Women's Health Initiative Study in July 2002,The Legal Intelligencer reports.

Despite a $1.5 million verdict in favor of Merle Simon, her lawsuit was dismissed because of the judgment. But the Superior Court said the trial judge shouldn't have tossed her suit because it was filed within two years of the publication of the WHI study, which found HRT drugs increase the risk of breast cancer. Simon was diagnosed with breast cancer in May 2002.

The Simon case is one of about 1,500 HRT cases filed in the Philadelphia courts and lawyers for other women who filed lawsuits view the Simon decision as a promising harbinger for the dozens of other HRT cases that are on appeal, the paper writes. "Clearly, all the courts indicate that it was not until the WHI that it was reasonable for the injured plaintiffs to know the causes of their breast cancer," Tobi Millrood, plaintiffs' liaison counsel for the HRT program, tells the Intelligencer.

Gavel courtesy of walknboston flickr creative commons

2 Comments

Jan 13, 2010 - 2:38pm

It's beyond me how it was tossed to begin with.

Jan 14, 2010 - 12:41am

This drug company can stall but it is only hurting the women that got cancer from this drug. This company is disgraceful and without morality, and stockholders should sell them out.