Freese & Goss - Landmark Law Suits
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Another Win in Topamax
After
a four week trial, led by trial lawyers Tim Goss and David Matthews, a
12 person jury awarded a 5 year old girl $3MM for a severe cleft lip and
palate caused by the drug Topamax. The manufacturer of the drug,
Janssen, a J&J company, argued the drug doesn’t cause birth defects,
but if it caused this one, we warned Mrs. Anderson that our drug may
cause birth defects.
This duplicitous argument was flatly rejected by
the jury. Jurors after the case stated, “if you see signs during the
sale of the drug, that it is causing birth defects, you need to let
doctors know.” Topamax was prescribed to Kelly Anderson for migraine
prevention. All drugs have a pregnancy risk category that doctors use
for prescribing medicines. Although there were multiple red flags that
Topamax caused birth defects in humans, Janssen did nothing to change
the risk category and doctors continued to prescribe the medication to
women of child bearing years. Janssen made over $2BB annually on this
drug, and lawyers for the Anderson family argued that was the motivation
for the lack of a label change. The jury agreed.
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