Content area
Full Text
In the first bellwether state trial over the osteoporosis drug Fosamax, Merck won a defense verdict last week.
An Atlantic City, N.J. jury rejected a 67-year-old woman's claim that she developed osteonecrosis of the jaw, or "jaw death," after taking the drug.
Merck faces about 1,500 suits over Fosamax, including federal multidistrict litigation and hundreds of claims in New Jersey state court.
While both sides fought out the three-week trial largely over whether Merck adequately warned about the risk of bisphosphonates in Fosamax causing jaw decay, the jury never got past the first question put to it: whether the plaintiff had the debilitating jaw disease, also known as ONJ.
The jury ended its deliberations after answering "no" to that question, 9-1.
Paul Sizemore of the Sizemore Law Firm in El Segundo, Calif., who represented the plaintiff, said he was "baffled" by the verdict because two of the plaintiff's treating physicians testified in person that she had the disease.
Winning defense lawyer Christy D. Jones of Butler Snow in Ridgeland, Miss. equated the verdict with a win on liability.
She said she was not surprised by the jury's findings because "we know ONJ existed long before the advent of [Fosamax]. It occurs in the general population and is attributable to trauma, infection, radiation and many other explanations."
But Meghan McCormick, who practices with Sizemore and also represented the plaintiff, said the redeeming aspect of the loss...