Quoted from http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=adHMfqi6biJU
Pfizer Faces First Trial on Claim Neurontin Boosts Suicide Risk
By Margaret Cronin Fisk, Jef Feeley and Cary O ’Reilly
July 24 (Bloomberg) -- Pfizer Inc., the world’s biggest drugmaker, goes to trial next week on claims its epilepsy medication Neurontin increases the risk of suicide, in a case the judge called “very tough” for the plaintiffs to win.
The July 27 trial will be the first of what plaintiffs’ lawyers say are about 1,200 cases. It will show each side the other’s strategy and may help point the way to settlements. The lead attorney for the family of Susan Bulger, 39, who took the drug before hanging herself in 2004, is Mark Lanier, winner of the biggest verdict over Merck & Co.’s painkiller Vioxx.
Pfizer says Bulger’s suicide was unrelated to its medicine and points to what it calls a history of mental disorders and abusing drugs including cocaine. Her past might make it hard for the family to win, said Robert Rabin, a law professor at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.
“If she was taking other drugs, there’s a question if this particular drug contributed to the suicide,” Rabin said in a phone interview.
U.S. District Judge Patti B. Saris in Boston made a similar point at a July 20 pretrial hearing. It’s “a very tough case because of her personal history,” she said.