A jury in Philadelphia found giant pharmaceutical maker Pfizer Inc. liable and ordered it to pay $75 million in punitive damages and $3.7 million in compensatory damages to a woman who developed breast cancer after taking the menopause drug Prempro. Pfizer faces another potential verdict in a similar lawsuit expected to end in a few weeks.
In addition to the two women involved in these lawsuits, over 6 million women have taken hormone-replacement medicines to treat their menopause symptoms. Pfizer combined their estrogen-based drug Premarin with progestin-laden Provera to make the drug Prempro. Sales of hormone-replacement drugs topped $2 billion annually until a 2002 U.S. National Institute of Health Women’s Health Initiative Study suggested women using these medicines had a higher breast cancer risk.
The Philadelphia jury ordered the punitive damages because they found the drugmaker’s conduct was willful and wanton including their executives’ hiding Prempro’s cancer risks to pump up sales and the company’s use of ghostwritten articles in medical journals to market the drug and deflect criticism of their actions.
This jury verdict, along with three others won by plaintiffs recently, may be sending a message to the giant drugmakers that consumers have had enough of being the unwitting victims of profit over patient safety. These types of verdicts are the only way individuals have to force these huge companies to face justice for their negligent actions. That’s why its critically important to publicize the facts of what happened to these individual plaintiffs so their rights are not trampled by the heavily-funded lobbying by big business for tort reform designed to insulate themselves from liability.
Richard J. Arsenault, 2010
I just can’t believe that Pfizer refuses to pay these recent lawsuits that they’ve lost! They’ve been ordered to pay millions and millions, but the victims of their products will likely be dead before they ever see any money.