Quoted from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-09/merck-s-fosamax-isn-t-cause-of-jaw-disease-drugmaker-s-lawyer-tells-jury.html
Merck's Fosamax Didn't Cause Jaw Disease in Woman, New Jersey Jury Is Told
By Thom Weidlich - Feb 9, 2011 5:03 PM ET
Merck & Co.’s osteoporosis drug Fosamax didn’t cause so-called jaw death in a Pennsylvania woman, because the drug doesn’t cause the disease and the woman never had it, a lawyer for the company told a jury.
The company’s attorney, Christy D. Jones, made her closing arguments today in Atlantic City, New Jersey, at the close of the first state-court trial over the drug. Alison Rosenberg, 67, sued claiming she developed osteonecrosis of the jaw as a result of taking Fosamax.
“There’s no evidence of eight weeks of exposed, necrotic, dead bone,” said Jones, of the law firm Butler, Snow, O’Mara, Stevens & Cannada PLLC in Ridgeland, Mississippi. “Ms. Rosenberg didn’t meet the definition.”
Merck, based in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, as of Sept. 30 faced about 1,180 Fosamax cases, including suits with multiple patients, the company said in a November regulatory filing. About 300 cases in New Jersey have been centralized with Superior Court Judge Carol E. Higbee in Atlantic City.
Merck won two of the three cases that went to jury verdicts in Manhattan federal court. A jury awarded $8 million to one plaintiff. U.S. District Judge John Keenan later reduced the award to $1.5 million. About 850 Fosamax cases are before Keenan.
Deliberations Begin Tomorrow
The Rosenberg jurors are scheduled to begin their deliberations tomorrow. If they find for the plaintiff and award damages, they would then hear evidence for and against punitive damages. The Atlantic City trial started Jan. 24.