Quoted from http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a1PJmlu0r6mE
Pfizer Units Win Dismissal of 23 Menopause Drug Suits
By Patricia Hurtado
Dec. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Pfizer Inc.’s Wyeth and Pharmacia & Upjohn units and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. won dismissal of at least 23 lawsuits filed by women who claimed menopause drugs caused their breast cancer, a New York judge ruled.
Pfizer, the world’s largest drugmaker, and other drug companies were sued in New York State Supreme Court in 2005 by Elizabeth Ansley. She and other plaintiffs allege in separate complaints they were diagnosed with breast cancer after being prescribed hormone therapy medications including Premarin, Prempro and Provera.
Ansley, a resident of New York, alleged drugmakers made claims regarding the health benefits of their hormone therapy drugs that were “false and misleading” which thereby “fraudulently induced physicians and patients alike to use their drug with the false assumption that such drugs had been sufficiently tested.”
“While plaintiffs’ proffered evidence is extensive, a review of the material and the record as a whole contain no evidence of fraud, misrepresentation or deception,” New York State Supreme Court Justice Martin Shulman said in a decision filed Dec. 14 and made public today.
Still Debating
Shulman granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment, or dismissal before trial, on lawsuits brought by Ansley and the 22 other plaintiffs. He also concluded the plaintiffs didn’t file their complaints within the state three year statute of limitations.
The judge cited the “ongoing medical debate as to the risks versus benefits of taking HRT,” he wrote. “Though this debate does not appear to be settled, the potential risk of contracting breast cancer from taking HRT medication was well known and at all times out there in the stream of public information.”