Los Angeles Times Examines Lawsuits Alleging HRT Causes Breast Cancer, Blood Clots

The Los Angeles Times on Monday examined lawsuits alleging that hormone replacement therapy causes side effects including breast cancer and blood clots and the "challenge" plaintiffs' attorneys face because HRT is approved by FDA and remains on the market. More than 3,600 lawsuits have been filed against Wyeth, Upjohn, Pfizer and other companies since a July 2002 study showed the risks associated with HRT. However, physicians last year wrote more than 40 million prescriptions for the therapy, and many women consider HRT "a godsend," the Times reports. Robert MacCoun, a professor at the University of California-Berkeley School of Law, said HRT's continued availability "implies that it must be pretty safe," making the job of plaintiffs' attorneys more difficult. The lawyers will "have to tell a more complicated story of why regulators haven't done their job," MacCoun said. However, plaintiffs' attorney Howard Snyder said, "The scientific evidence is substantial, and it indicates that hormone replacement therapy causes breast cancer." Most of 3,000 suits filed in federal district courts have been gathered before U.S. District Judge William Wilson in Little Rock, Ark., for pretrial discovery, and the first federal trial could begin in July 2006. Several hundred other cases are before state court judges, according to the Times (Selvin, Los Angeles Times, 11/7).


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