The drugmaker was 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 Prempro or Premarin hormone replacement therapies. In one case, a jury awarded $28 million and a judge unsealed another case from last month with a $75 million judgment. Both cases played out in a Pennsylvania state court in Philadelphia.
Some 1,500 lawsuits have been filed in Philadelphia and another 10,000 are lodged in other courts around the country. Lawyers for many plaintiffs say they have won financial settlements for undisclosed amounts in at least 10 other cases before the suits went to trial, according to The New York Times. Esther Berezofsky, a lawyer for one of the women who won the awards in Philadelphia tells the paper that “this is just the tip of the iceberg.”
In cases that had reached jury judgments, women with breast cancer had won damages in 10 of the 12 hormone drug cases, although many are on appeal, she tells the paper, adding that a federal appeals court decision in St. Louis this month had significantly improved the chances of receiving punitive damages and winning appeals.
In that decision, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit overturned an award of $27 million for an Arkansas woman, citing improper testimony by an expert witness, but ordered a new trial on punitive damages. The judges’ ruling said “there was sufficient evidence upon which a jury could conclude that Wyeth acted with reckless disregard to the risk of injury.”
One Wall Street tells the paper the latest judgments would have little effect on Pfizer unless the punitive damages were upheld on appeal. “At this point, it doesn’t concern me too much,” says Tim Anderson of Sanford C. Bernstein.
For its part, Pfizer denies improper conduct and plans further appeals.
4 Comments
Most likely, the punitive damages will be overturned, as they almost always are. But the fact that the the three-judge panel of the Appeals Ct. of the 8th Circ. found that Wyeth acted with "reckless disregard" is not trivial.
For those concerned with "lay juries," there were no lay juries in this decision...rather, three 8th Circuit judges.
I agree that the punitive damages will likely get lowered because as we all know, the drug makers will never let victims collect until they have dragged them through years of appeals, during which time many decide to take a lower amount just to get it over with.
Synthetic Hormones, Pfizer-Wyeth Lose Big Court Case
A 112 million dollar punitive award indicates outrage by the "wanton and reckless” conduct by Wyeth. This is the tip of the iceberg, as another ten thousand cases are waiting for their day in court.
Women's Health Initiative Bombshell
Seven years ago, a bombshell appeared in the medical literature, and massive numbers of women switched from Prempro to safer bio-identical hormones. This was the 2002 WHI study which showed that PremPro causes breast cancer. This massive shift away from synthetic Prempro reduced breast cancer rates to 10,000 fewer cases per year. (NEJM Volume 356:1670-1674 April 19, 2007 Number 16)
For More: http://jeffreydach.com/2009/11/27/synthetic-hormones-pfizerwyeth-lose-big-court-case-by-jeffrey-dach-md.aspx
Jeffrey Dach MD
For JHC's sake, why THE HELL hasn't there been a link and just as much talk as this correlating Hormone Replacement Therapies to PANCREATIC CANCER??? No pink ribbons??? Waaaah - cry me a river. Go for your checkups and you will not die. Google "Function of the Pancreas". It PRODUCES HORMONES that these poisons replace when a woman is going through menopause.
President Carter is going to beat the hell out of somebody soon.
Oprah got her medical degree from the Nielsen School of Housewife Ratings.
Come on people. We're all being made fools of.
WAKE UP!!!
~ M. Black