Medical Negligence

Damages against Pfizer’s Warner-Lambert unit were awarded in Tulsa to the family of a man who took Rezulin for a month.‍

After awarding Wakefield’s family $1.55 million in compensatory damages, the jury voted to order Pfizer to pay $10 million in punitive damages over Warner-Lambert’s handling of Rezulin.

“The award reflects the jury’s feelings toward this type of conduct by drug companies,” said Zoe Littlepage, a Houston lawyer who represents Wakefield’s family.

Pfizer officials refused to comment on the punitive-damage award except to say they would appeal both awards.

The case is among thousands of suits filed on behalf of former Rezulin users who say company officials hid the drug’s health risks to pump up sales. The drug was pulled from the U.S. market in March 2000 after being linked to at least 63 liver-related deaths.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys and drug-industry analysts are trying to gauge whether Pfizer may face liability problems similar to those that the American Home Products Corp. battled over its fen-phen diet combination.

American Home, which changed its name to Wyeth this month, has set aside $13.2 billion to settle lawsuits over the diet drugs, after failing to win any of the cases brought before juries since the combination was pulled off the market in 1997.

More than 200,000 former fen-phen users, who said the combination damaged their hearts, have resolved claims as part of American Home’s $3.75 billion nation settlement.

Pfizer currently faces lawsuits on behalf of nearly 5,000 former Rezulin users in state and federal courts, according to a November filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In the Tulsa case, Wakefield’s attorneys argued that Warner-Lambert officials knew that more than 500 Rezulin users around the world had suffered liver damage while it was assuring the Food and Drug Administration the drug was safe.

Pfizer’s attorneys countered that Rezulin did not cause Wakefield’s death and that the FDA repeatedly found that diabetics could safely use the drug.