Created: 21 April 2009
Bloomberg News (4/21, O’Reilly) reports, “Wyeth, the drugmaker being acquired by Pfizer Inc., must face a lawsuit by a woman who claims her breast cancer was caused by the menopause medicine Prempro [estrogens, conjugated/medroxyprogesterone], a Texas appeals court ruled.” The court decided that “Susan Brockert’s ‘failure-to-warn’ claims aren’t preempted by federal drug-labeling regulations, overturning a district judge’s finding from February 2007.” In its decision, “the appeals panel cited last month’s U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding a $7 million award to a musician who lost her arm after being injected with Wyeth’s Phenergan [promethazine] nausea treatment.” The Supreme Court had ruled that “patients can sue drugmakers for failing to provide adequate safety warnings, even when a treatment and its packaging are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.” The case will now be “sent back to the lower court for further proceedings.”