Wyeth Settles 1st NJ Prempro Case
1 CommentBy Ed Silverman // July 16th, 2007 // 10:15 am
Shortly before the trial was set to begin this morning, the drugmaker agreed to end the Deutsch case by making an undisclosed payment. The case “has been resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the parties. The terms of the resolution and events leading up to it are confidential and sealed, so we won’t be able to provide any further comment on this case,” according to an e-mail from Wyeth spokesman Chris Garland.
Ellen Deutsch took the hormone replacement therapy - and its predecessor, Premarin - for a total of seven years and was eventually diagnosed with breast cancer. Deutsch, who lives in Livingston, NJ, a New York suburb, was 55 at the time she was diagnosed.
As with the handful of previous cases, which have resulted in a mixed bag for Wyeth, Deutsch’s lawyers charged that the drugmaker spent decades actively promoting hormone replacement therapy as a desirable, life-long menopausal treatment, but failed to sufficiently study the meds and, later, backpedaled on its claims before a government-funded study linked the drugs to cancer and heart risks.
You can read the background here and here
About 200 Prempro cases are stacked up in New Jersey Superior Court. Last month, by the way, state court judge Bryan Garruto tossed aside Wyeth’s argument that an FDA rule pre-empts the right to file a product liability lawsuit. Previous Prempro cases took place in Pennsylvania state court in Philadelphia and federal court in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Mayer
Maybe now the word will get out that Premarin/Prrempro the HRT’s are unavoidably dangerous.
Estrogen is intimately connected with the development of most
breast cancers. Estrogen encourages breast cells to divide more often and more rapidly. Thus, if a mutation (inherited or triggered by a carcinogen) lies imbedded in the DNA, cancer cells are more likely to proliferate when high estrogen levels are present. This also may help to explain why breast cancer rates in women have increased in tandem with the widespread use of Hormone Replacement Therapy and Birth Control Pills.
Both of these synthetic hormonal medications increase the amount of estrogen circulating in a woman’s body. Indeed, we now know that two distinct types of breast cancer exist: the far more common, estrogen-dependent breast cancer influenced primarily by estrogen, and the less common, non-estrogen dependent breast cancer. More than 75% of women with breast cancer have estrogen-dependent cancers, and that number is increasing at a particularly alarming rate.
According to a study published in 1990 by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, the incidence of estrogen-dependent breast cancers, particularly among post-menopausal women, increased by 130% from mid-1970’s to the mid-1980’s in contrast to only a 27% increase in non-estrogen-dependent cancers.
Contrary to what you may have heard or read, synthetic Hormone Replacement Therapy and oral contraceptives (“the Pillâ€), do not protect against heart disease. They do cause increased blood clots, cancer, strokes, etc. and there are other safer means to prevent osteoporosis. Estrogen replacement therapy is an avoidable cause of breast cancer. Risks are greatest with prolonged use and high doses and also with estrogen-progestin combinations.
Doctors and the public have been indoctrinated as to the medicinal value of HRT and the birth control pill. Doctors believe that pregnancy is a disease to be avoided and that menopause is a fate worse than death. They use that belief as a reason to dose a woman with estrogen from her reproductive years through menopause. Doctors continue to ignore the growing body of evidence as to the risks of synthetic hormone use. Even when the evidence demonstrates a very strong association between synthetic estrogens and breast and endometrial cancers, doctors refuse to change their position (see page ). They argue that synthetic estrogens are still valuable because they truly believe that new studies will show that synthetic HRT is not that dangerous.
There is no benefit in taking synthetic estrogens to prevent heart disease. The benefits that synthetic hormones allegedly have in preventing osteoporosis are not only questionable, but the same or better results can be obtained by diet, exercise and the application of the safe, natural progesterone creams.