http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-horm16.html

Drugmaker wins suit on hormone replacement

September 16, 2006

BY ANDREW DEMILLO

LITTLE ROCK -- Wyeth won the first case in a series of lawsuits over its hormone replacement drugs Friday when a federal jury rejected a woman's claim the drugs caused her breast cancer.

A jury ruled against Linda Reeves, 67, in her suit against the New Jersey drugmaker, the first of about 4,500 against Wyeth over hormone
drugs Premarin and Prempro. In the four-week trial, Reeves acknowledged not reading information supplied with the drug and said she left it up to her doctor to decide whether it was appropriate to treat symptoms of menopause.

Lyn Pruitt, an attorney for Wyeth, said the lawsuit was an ''excellent'' sign of how coming legal battles over the drugs would fare. Reeves'
lawyer disputed that notion.

''Hundreds of thousands of doctors across the country still prescribe these products because they also believe they are excellent products
with great benefits,'' Pruitt said after the verdict.

Breast cancer cited

The lawsuit said Wyeth failed to act responsibly. Wyeth lawyers told jurors that the benefits of Prempro and a similar drug, Premarin, outweighed the risks and said the drug company had informed both Reeves and her doctor of the risks.

Reeves took one or the other of the drugs before being diagnosed in 2000 with a cancerous tumor in her right breast. She took Premarin, a form of estrogen, and her doctor soon added progestin to her regimen. She switched to Prempro in 1996, which combined Premarin and progestin in one pill.