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Wed 16 Jun, 2010 10:10 am
Judge approves $110 million settlement in baby death class action
Leigh Jones
June 11, 2010
A federal judge in Texas said on Friday that he would sign a $110 million settlement on Monday in a class action involving the death of scores of premature babies who received a vitamin E supplement during the 1980s.
Judge Sidney Fitzwater, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, said that he would give final approval to the E-Ferol class action settlement. The lawsuit, which alleged that about 40 babies died from intravenous doses of E-Ferol, involved a class of 369 plaintiffs.
The case was filed in 2003 after nearly 90 hospitals had administered the supplement to premature infants to help prevent blindness and visual impairments. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration had not approved E-Ferol's use, although the class alleged that the companies that manufactured and distributed it led hospitals to believe that it had received such approval.
The defendants were manufacturer Carter-Glogau Laboratories Inc. and distributor O'Neal, Jones & Feldman Inc., which are no longer in business. The executives of those companies were convicted of conspiracy and other charges in 1987. The settlement money will come from the companies' insurers.
The class alleged that E-Ferol caused liver and kidney failure and brain bleeds in the children. It followed an investigation conducted during the early 1980s by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that prompted a recall of E-Ferol. The investigation led to settlements for as many as 50 other infant deaths before the class action was filed. The court certified the class in 2004. The investigation determined that an ingredient in E-Ferol, the emulsifier Polysorbate 80, caused the symptoms.
Art Brender of the Law Offices of Art Brender in a Fort Worth, Texas, was lead counsel for the plaintiffs. The plaintiff attorneys' fee award amounts to 30% of the settlement payout plus reimbursement of expenses.
The judge's final approval of the settlement, Brender said, will provide his clients with some emotional relief. "These women who lost these children said they felt like there was something that they should have done that they didn't. They finally realize that nothing was their fault," he said.
Representing the defendants was Barry Chasnoff, a partner in the San Antonio office of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. He did not respond to a message seeking comment.
National Law Journal
@Miller,
The pharmaceutical industry had compromised doctors by converting them into drug sales(wo)men.
@Miller,
Unnecessary Prozac prescriptions.
@Miller,
Don't docs make enough money?
@talk72000,
Most greed can never be sated, money talks, moral and integrety walks.
@talk72000,
talk72000 wrote:
Don't docs make enough money?
Some don't even clear $50,000/year.
@Miller,
You must be kidding. I heard most doctors were in the $100,000-200,000 range. It must be the General Practioners who end up in the lowest barcket. All the men are going into Specialist category as that is where the money is and leaving the GP to women.
@talk72000,
This is the consequence of modern medicine according to the glorious Obama administration.
@Miller,
No it is just guys who go into medicine for the money. I remember in Chicago a guy who was in PreMed and I asked him why he was in it. He said it was purely for the money. There was no talk of helping people or saving lives.
@talk72000,
But still there's a major shortage of MDs in primary care.
@Miller,
Probably from the food indutry incapacitating people with processed foods leading fatness and thus to high blood pressure and so on.
@talk72000,
Many of the medical problems could be easily handled by mind control.
@Miller,
You mean the placebo effect? No most of the medical problems are genuine but psychosomatic effects are real of a peripheral zone e.g. if a person finds living a drag and wants to die all the medicine will only prolong his/her misery but death is certain. But a fighter who could conquer certain cancers if given certain herbal medicine but not all.
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