Hormone Replacement Therapy & Breast Cancer
Some women who reach their middle age enter a stage of life called menopause. Over the last 60 years, millions of women have received menopausal hormone therapy to relieve symptoms of menopause which are sometimes felt as hot flashes. Through the 1970's, menopausal women received estrogen to combat those symptoms. Premarin, manufactured by Wyeth Laboratories from pregnant mare's urine, was the nation's leading menopausal drug. But in the 1970's, doctors learned that Premarin caused endometrial cancer. Predictably, sales of Premarin plummeted, as woman appropriately stayed away.
Only a few years later, however, Wyeth learned that if women combined estrogen with another hormone called progestin, the endometrial cancer problem would disappear. So, to revive its failing drug, Wyeth told woman and their doctors that if they took the combination of Premarin and a progestin, they would not develop endometrial cancer. Moreover, Wyeth told the public, this combination hormone therapy (estrogen and a progestin), would also provide added protection to their heart, their bones, that it would help prevent Alzheimer's disease, depression, and increase their sexual vitality. In the mid-1990s, Wyeth turned the combination of Premarin and a progestin into a single pill, called "Prempro" and promoted it to women as the Fountain of Youth. Wyeth, however, had no data to back these claims up.
In July 2002, a federal study revealed that long-term use of Prempro leads to increased risk of breast cancer, heart disease and strokes. This study, called the Woman's Health Initiative (WHI), showed doctors that virtually everything that the pharmaceutical companies had been telling them about the benefits and risks of Prempro was wrong! The WHI study concluded that the RISKS of Prempro outweighed its benefits, and urged woman on the study to stop taking Prempro immediately.
Hormone therapy has been in use as a purported treatment for women's menopausal symptoms and the prevention of osteoporosis for almost three decades. Throughout the United States, in both State and federal courts, there are currently about 7,900 claims pending by women who have allegedly been injured by combination hormone therapy. The thrust of these lawsuits, which are being prosecuted against Wyeth and other makers of synthetic hormones, is that combination hormone therapy (horse estrogen plus synthetic progestin) can cause breast cancer, that Wyeth and the other drug makers have known about this risk for decades, and that the drug makers failed to warn physicians or consumers until they were forced to do so in July 2002. Publication of the results of a government-run study entitled the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) in July 2002 revealed that women taking combination therapy, including Wyeth's Prempro, are at in increased risk for invasive breast cancer, heart attack, stroke, pulmonary emboli, and deep vein thrombosis. The lawsuits also allege that Wyeth and the other drug makers illegally promoted the drugs for unapproved indications, including the prevention of cardiovascular disease, and that the companies over-promoted the benefits of the drugs while attempting to downplay their risks.
The year 2007 and the early months of 2008 have brought several notable victories for the plaintiffs in hormone therapy litigation. In 2007, three separate trials that took place in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Mass Tort Program In re Hormone Therapy Litigation resulted in plaintiff's jury verdicts. First, in Nelson v. Wyeth, where the plaintiff suffered breast cancer after six and a half years of Prempro use, the jury awarded compensatory damages in the amount of $3 million. Although the judge granted Wyeth's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, the case is currently pending on appeal for a reinstatement of the verdict. Second, in Daniel v. Wyeth, where the plaintiff contracted breast cancer after only a year and a half of using Prempro, the jury awarded compensatory damages in the amount of $1.5 million and an undisclosed amount of punitive damages. However, the court granted a new trial, and the case is currently pending on appeal. Finally, in Simon v. Wyeth, where the plaintiff took combination hormone therapy for approximately ten years, the jury awarded compensatory damages of $1.5 million. The Simon case, like the other two, is on appeal following the trial court's overturning of the verdict.
Plaintiffs are winning in other parts of the country as well. For instance, in late 2007, three individual cases were consolidate for one trial in Reno, Nevada: Scofield v. Wyeth, Rowatt v. Wyeth, and Forrestor v. Wyeth. Following trial, the jury awarded the plaintiffs a total of $35 million in compensatory damages and $99 million in punitive damages. In March 2008, following a trial in Scroggin v. Wyeth in Little Rock, Arkansas, the jury awarded the plaintiff $2.5 million in compensatory damages and $27 million in punitive damages.
Our firm represents hundreds of women who have developed cancer as a result of taking Hormone Replacement Therapy. At Pogust Braslow & Millrood, we accept cases against the manufacturers of hormone replacement therapy. That is why if you or a loved one has been treated with hormone replacement therapy and diagnosed with cancer, you should immediately call the attorneys at Pogust Braslow & Millrood, where Protecting Consumers Is Our Primary Goal. We will evaluate your case, explain all of your options, and work to assure that the appropriate parties are held responsible. Just fill out this form, click here to send us an email or call us at (610) 941-4204.
|
