Lawsuits you should know about

When going through menopause, women often suffer many side effects such as hot flashes, night sweats, and vaginal itching and dryness. Prempro is a hormone therapy made by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals that will help lessen those symptoms. Women who are going through a natural menopause can benefit from Prempro’s hormone replacement therapy, which is a combination of estrogens and a progestin.

Since 1995, millions of women have taken Prempro, making it one of the leading hormone replacement therapy drugs on the market. In 2001 alone, Prempro resulted in $890 million dollars in sales for Wyeth Pharmaceuticals.

However, there have been studies that have shown that while Prempro does relieve the symptoms of menopause, it can also increase the risk of stroke, blood clots, ovarian cancer, endometrial cancer, and breast cancer. A study of the drug’s usage began in 1991 and it was conducted by the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI). It started as a 15-year study to find a way to prevent heart disease, breast cancer, colorectal cancer, and osteoporosis. Over 161,000 postmenopausal women were involved in the study. One part of the study involved almost 17.000 women taking an estrogen plus progestin therapy (Prempro) or a placebo. The idea was to determine if Prempro would help prevent heart disease but also determine if the benefits of using Prempro outweighed the risks.

After only 5 years, the study was stopped. So risky was this study that the National Institute of Health (NIH) decided to cancel it to protect the participants. A result showed that not only was Prempro not helpful in preventing heart disease, but it increased the chances of breast cancer. It is believed that women who have taken Prempro have a 29% higher chance of having a heart attack, are 41% more likely to suffer a stroke, and have a 26% higher chance of getting breast cancer.

As a result of this study, there are now lawsuits being filed against Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. The lawsuits claim that Wyeth knew that Prempro had hazardous side effects and failed to describe them in their packaging. In addition, Wyeth failed to remove the drug from the market after the study results became known.

In July 2002, a class action suit was filed against Wyeth Pharmaceuticals by women who were prescribed Prempro. The lawsuit seeks not only compensation for women who suffered side effects such as heart attacks or breast cancer due to Prempro use, but also to get medical monitoring to screen for breast cancer and dementia for all patients who have taken the drug. The lawsuit also hopes to make the risks of taking Prempro known to the public as it has yet to be taken off the market. In May 2005, a woman from Baltimore filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against Wyeth, claiming that her breast cancer resulted from having taken Prempro. She is asking for $30 million in damages.

If you, a family member, or a friend has taken Prempro, you may be eligible to get in on the class action suit. Even if you have not suffered any side effects from the drug, you will still want to get future medical monitoring for potential side effects. Contact a lawyer for more information about the Prempro class action lawsuit.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 24th, 2008 at 9:36 am and is filed under Lawsuits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.