Pfizer Wins Dismissal Of 23 Prempro Lawsuits
5 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // December 17th, 2009 // 8:16 am
A New York State court judge tossed the lawsuits filed by 23 women who claimed the drugmaker’s hormone replacement therapies - Prempro, Premarin and Provera - caused their breast cancer. Another defendant was Teva Pharmaceuticals.
“While plaintiffs’ proffered evidence is extensive, a review of the material and the record as a whole contain no evidence of fraud, misrepresentation or deception,” New York State Supreme Court Justice Martin Shulman wrote in his Dec. 14 decision (please see here). He also concluded the plaintiffs didn’t file their complaints within the state three year statute of limitations.
In reaching his decision, Shulman cited the “ongoing medical debate as to the risks versus benefits of taking HRT…Though this debate does not appear to be settled, the potential risk of contracting breast cancer from taking HRT medication was well known and at all times out there in the stream of public information.”
The decision comes amid ongoing controversy over the marketing of the drugs. In October, a jury in a Pennsylvania state court awarded a woman $75 million in punitive damages from Wyeth - which originally sold Prempro and Premarin, but is now owned by Pfizer - on top of compensatory damages of $3.75 million.
And last month, a federal appellate court in St. Louis ruled in the case of a plaintiff that Wyeth’s inaction over accumulating evidence — and the company’s attempts to mitigate cancer concerns by trying to undermine unfavorable scientific reports — could allow a jury to find Wyeth guilty of malicious conduct and award punitive damages. A recent piece in The New York Times noted that:
- Even as evidence mounted of an association between the drugs with cancer — first in the 1970s with Premarin and endometrial cancer, then in the 1990s with Prempro and breast cancer — Wyeth tried to contain the concerns. (A note handwritten in 1996 by a Wyeth employee responding to a new report of breast cancer risks associated with hormone therapy said: “Dismiss/distract.”)
- In 1975, an FDA panel concluded there was a link between Premarin and endometrial cancer, and Wyeth sent a letter to docs trying to mitigate such concerns, documents show. But FDA officials were “incensed” the letter “intended to obfuscate the issues,” according to this document.
The Times reminds us that, in 1997, Wyeth began working with DesignWrite, a company in Princeton, N.J., that is paid by drugmakers to develop manuscripts for publication in medical journals. The specific objective of a publication plan for Premarin was to “increase physician awareness on the multitude of benefits that hormone replacement therapy provides” and “diminish the negative perceptions associated with estrogens and cancer,” according to a 1997 DesignWrite proposal prepared for Wyeth.
Over the next decade, Wyeth paid DesignWrite to prepare at least 60 articles for publication in medical journals on the potential benefits of hormone therapy for cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, colon cancer, vision loss and other health problems, the court documents show. In response to an e-mail query, Michael Platt, president of DesignWrite, wrote to the paper that the articles were all medically and scientifically accurate and valid and peer reviewed.
Justice in MI
Interesting to me that the judge disagrees with “fraud, deception, or misrepresentation,” but does not use the term, “neglect.”
What I get from most of the released documents and summaries(like Ed’s good one) is tactics aimed _not_ to know, and make it as hard as possible for others _to_ know, rather than suppressing definitive knowledge. Thus, “dismiss/distract” fits well with the overall plan.
It sounds like (haven’t read the full decision) this judge focused on suppression of definitive risk info. Punitive damages decision. as the history is retold, was more about warding off bad news as long as possible–until the WHI, as it turned out.
Big Pharma Watch
What BS!!!!!
M. Black
How could a judge, or how much was he bribed to conclude a negation of “deception”. The data was knowingly hidden for a decade.
I’ve said this on other posts, but it needs to be restated:
Why in the world is the emphasis on breast cancer? First, imagine what would occur, or go thru in your own mind reading “Prempro link to Pancreatic Cancer”.
A bit more frightening, no?
Google “function of the pancreas” and familiarize yourself with that.
Why the F$&K has a link between any of the 3 HRT’s written about not been established? The pancreas makes hormones that are tinkered with by these three drugs.
President Carter, where are you now?
Do you (the reader) know of anyone that has or had Pancreatic Cancer and also have been taking any of the three HRT’s?
If so, the time to make noise and / or see an attorney ASAP.
There is an aspect of more serious danger to the pancreas than to the breast. Oprah doesn’t have a medical degree, we all know you’re a woman even if you have one or both breasts removed, but you are alive. If proper precautionary measures are taken by the patient, there is little to no risk that you will die of Breast Cancer. Not so much with Pancreatic Cancer. In fact, if the link of HRT’s with Breast Cancer is being used as a sort of “distractor” to something more serious, the defendant / jury / judge could always conclude “Well, you’re alive”. The proverbial bleeding these companies (or Wyeth) will be far less than if it is established that their product(s) caused death, and data has been under lock and key for a decade.
They confessed. Now the clock is ticking. The statute of limitations clock. The time to act is now. See an attorney …. Yesterday.
M. Black
Mr. Green Jeans
I know of an internal auditor of Wyeth that many years ago was made to change failing audit results from “Fail” to “Inconclusive”.
The “dismiss / distract” think made me think of that.
Part of a trend?
If I were to guess, I would guess yes.
These people certainly are not the offspring of Mother Teresa and Ghandi…
Pete Neisman
Interesting that the fraud was so evident that a fraudulent and corrupt judge could not find it. The fact is that Wyeth used the wrong estrogen (the one that causes cancer in lab rats) -was not ruled as fraud with intent to cause harm. The fact is that this judge should be removed and the cases tried based on facts instead of a corrupt judge. This is a disgrace and women in the US should be outraged. The women who died of breast cancer, heart attacks, blood clots caused by this drug are real-and their rights must be defended even against a corrupt judge.