$113 Million Hormone Therapy Settlement

Earlier this month, a jury awarded three women a gigantic $113 million settlement in response to allegations that the hormone therapy they were taking, manufactured by Wyeth, had caused them to develop breast cancer – a huge concern for women suffering from estrogen dominance either naturally or as a result of hormone therapies.

Two separate lawsuits were brought up against Wyeth, each revolving around the safety of a hormone replacement supplement known as Prempro (or Premarin). The women involved in these cases worked with doctors and lawyers to prove that their long term use of Prempro had caused them to develop breast cancer.

Two Philadelphia cases have set precedent for future cases and more than 10,000 women are in line to take a chunk out of Wyeth. Donna Kendall was awarded $28 million in punitive damages. She developed breast cancer after taking Prempro for 11 years. Connie Barton was awarded $75 million in punitive damages as well as $3.7 million in compensatory damages.

The Women’s Health Institute released a study back in 2002 stating that women who had used the hormone therapy replacement Prempro had a significantly higher risk of developing breast cancer. Instead of having the drug pulled off the market, the FDA only required Wyeth to add a black-box warning to the packaging.

Wyeth, which is now owned by Pfizer,  is accused of not studying the side effects of the drug, as well as having paid ghost-writers to write articles for medical journals without focusing on the risks or side effects, including the known risks of breast cancer.

Pfizer plans to appeal the decisions and we’ll be watching closely to see what happens.

Want to read more about these settlements? Check out the IPWorld article released when the judgments came through:

Pfizer to pay US$113m over hormone replacement drug

Related posts:

1. When to use Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy
2. Estriol – A Safer Estrogen Alternative?
3. Why Transdermal Hormone Creams Work the Best