“Merck & Co has agreed to settle hundreds of lawsuits over jaw injuries allegedly caused by the osteoporosis drug Fosamax, lawyers disclosed at a court hearing Monday.”
Meanwhile, I’m not an attorney, but this would seem to be a good sign for PFS litigants as well.
It appears as if Merck is realizing that – in the wake of huge cost-cutting moves this year – it would not be wise to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on legal fees when it could just settle up with victims and be done with the financial liabilities.
No matter how much Merck pays out to PFS victims it wont be enough for what they have gone through. I would rather see the people responsible for this drug go to jail than get compensation.
As someone who pretty closely follows all of the news surrounding Merck, I really do believe this is great news for everyone suffering from PFS. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time in recent history Merck has offered a settlement of this size to victims of one of its drugs. A lawsuit involving Vytorin (a cholesterol drug) was settled in October, but the plaintiffs of that litigation were Merck investors who claimed the company had defrauded them about the efficacy of the drug; the plaintiffs were not victims of a Merck drug. Big difference, in my opinion.
Nonetheless, these settlements indicate to me that Merck is no longer interested in the type of prolonged, scorched-Earth litigation that it pursued during the time of Vioxx and instead is looking to settle its lawsuits as quickly as possible. If Merck extends this new modus operandi to the Propecia litigation, it would mean money in the pockets of everyone involved in the lawsuits – money I can only hope all of you would pour into the foundation, which would in turn fund more research and allow us to get to the bottom of this terrible syndrome as quickly as possible.
In any case, the next potentially revealing development will be how Merck decides to handle litigation surround NuvaRing, a female contraceptive that many individuals have alleged causes pulmonary embolisms and other blood-clotting issues. Trials are set to begin in early January. If Merck decides to settle, it would likely be before then. Stay tuned.
Clampdown-
Im glad you are optimistic, but I see 27 million for over 1000 Fosamax victims not as justice, but a joke, and a capital V victory for Merck. If broken jaws and femurs can’t be proven in a court, how the hell can we expect invisible PFS symptoms to be proven?
Thats only 27k for each victim minus whatever the lawyers will take off, which is not a lot of money for a life changing condition. Also its small change for a company as big as Merck it doesnt sound like like they will go bankrupt anytime soon from lawsuits.
If there was any justice in the world Merck would be closed down and all their board members arrested the company is responsible for more deaths than al qaeda.
Merck should be declared a terrorist organization.
symptoms are not invisible, though … i have before and after pics which prove exactly what i am talking about … i show them to the doctors …
i used a generic, so it will be very, very tough to recover anything because of the pathetic laws in this dog shit country, but i agree … justice would be that they went out of business and spent their lives in jail, but again, this country is not nearly what so many people make it out to be, so it is not likely that will happen
maybe if we feel screwed over when all is said and done, we can find a way to take matters into our own hands, whatever is necessary for justice
The $27 million settlement was a slap in the face, and that’s got to hurt espescially bad for Fosamax victims since they already have a broken jaw. Merck paid $10 million settling claims the company they bought out overstated the benefits of its suncreen.
I agree that the settlement offer is a pittance. But the fact that Merck is even WILLING to settle wholesale like that is a promising development.
And I suspect that in the Propecia litigation, the company will begin with six-figure offers, as the drug’s devastation is typically far worse than what Fosamax (allegedly) caused.
Yes I agree. Not to be-little the Fosamax victims at all, but you can have a Jaw replacement operation but you cannot replace a broken or shrunken penis, lost feelings/emotions, been driven to suicide, loss of muscle mass, growing bitch tits and the list goes on !!!
Fair enough. To be honest, I had misread the number of victims initially. I agree it’s a too-small settlement relative to the injuries suffered.
I’m not a lawyer, but I certainly believe there’s at least potential for bigger offers with Propecia. What probably hurt the Fosamax people most was that Merck won three out of the five bellwether cases in which plaintiffs alleged jawbone injuries. I have no idea whether there will be any bellwether cases with the Propecia litigation, but if there are, the verdicts will probably be telling.
Again, not a lawyer, nor a medical professional, so I could be way off, but I tend to think these jawbone fractures may have been more difficult to prove than we’re realizing. Fosamax, after all, is an osteoporosis drug, and people who suffer from osteoporosis experience bone loss and are at an increased risk of bone fracture. While there’s been research that shows bisphosphonates like Fosamax are linked with osteonecrosis of the jaw, I have to imagine it wouldn’t be beyond the abilities of a skilled lawyer to create enough doubt in a jury of laypeople that a plaintiff’s jawbone fracture was simply a product of his/her condition, not a product of Fosamax. Anyway, would be happy to hear any assenting/dissenting opinions from those with more knowledge on these topics.
the payoff was probably a no-brainer for them … the amount they paid was chump change for them … and as far as bad publicity? what the fuck do they care? this is not the first time they have done vial things and they continue to be allowed to get away with it … when will it finally be enough for meaningful action to be taken for these crimes against humanity? vioxx? are you fucking kidding me?
if i were merck, i would have taken that deal and be laughing all the way home … you dont get to have a jaw anymore and can never leave the house or look at your loved ones the same way, ever again, but here is a few thousand bucks, “be well”
i guess if the people meant to protect us are the biggest traitors of all, then something very, very drastic would have to be done for any hope of change
it is shocking how many people are out there who have had their lives destroyed beyond their wildest imagination by big pharma
What someone on the plaintiff side needs to do is take a cue from Michael Corleone, and tell Merck that the plaintiffs will accept “nothing” – nothing short of long prison terms for those Merck staffers responsible for creating and perpetuating the horror that is Propecia:
I was having a bad day yesterday and I reacted to the Fosamax news pessimistically…I guess I don’t know the details of the case. Did Merck have warnings on the drug about the bone decay? Was it like Vioxx where they hid research from the FDA?
I do think our case is very unique in that we are stuck with an ongoing condition…a broken bone heals, PFS doesn’t. Plus - a settlement will be quicker and allows some of us to donate the money to research so we can get this cured once and for all. I guess time will tell.
All good questions, Jorbie – and ones that will require a little research.
But another thing to be aware of is that, a few months back, the federal judge in this case ordered most all of the cases back to state courts, a move that would have cost Merck tens of millions of dollars more in legal fees.
No one can say for sure if that was the judge’s way of forcing Merck’s hand for a settlement (let alone telling the pharmaceutical giant to go screw itself), but it sure was a move in the plaintiff’s favor.
So it seems like another good sign: that the legal system of tiring of Merck’s litigate-them-do-death tactics aimed at dissuading injured consumers from seeking justice when the company’s products wreak unfathomable havoc on their lives.
