Plaintiff: Prempro caused breast cancer

LITTLE ROCK (AFX) - Attorneys for a woman who claims she was diagnosed with breast cancer after taking Prempro told a federal jury Wednesday that drug maker Wyeth ignored repeated signals that the hormone combination drug could cause breast cancer.

Zoe Littlepage, an attorney for Linda Reeves of Benton, showed jurors a cartoon of an ostrich sticking its head in the sand as she said lawyers would provide jurors with internal documents from the drug company about Prempro's risks.

"You will see signal after signal of people telling Wyeth ... 'Wow, maybe there's a breast cancer issue with this combination,'" Littlepage said. "Why did Wyeth not do a long-term breast cancer study when the signals were there all along?"

Lawyers for Wyeth said in their opening statement that the company warned Reeves and her doctors about the potential breast cancer risks of Prempro and said no one can prove Prempro caused her illness.

Reeves' case against Wyeth over its menopause symptoms treatment will focus on the pharmaceutical company's relationship with its customers, Littlepage said.

"This case is about responsibility," she told jurors during opening statements.

Littlepage and another lawyer for Reeves, Mike Williams, said they planned to introduce witnesses who could prove the links between Prempro and breast cancer and show that Wyeth could have conducted a study on the drug's breast cancer risks as early as 1983.

"There was a 10-year delay that was Wyeth's fault for not getting this ... out to doctors," Williams said. "That delay was all the difference for Linda Reeves."

They said Reeves was diagnosed with breast cancer after taking Prempro for at least eight years. Reeves' attorneys said her breast cancer was a type that depended on hormones to grow.

Attorneys for Wyeth said Reeves had said in a deposition that she didn't read a patient- information slip provided with her prescription which noted a potential breast cancer risk.

Wyeth lawyer Stephen Urbanczyk said the benefits of the drug were outweighed by the potential risks. He noted that Prempro is still available on the market.

"This is not about whether you like a pharmaceutical company or its employees," Urbanczyk said. "Wyeth met its responsibility in this case."

Another lawyer for Wyeth, Lyn Pruitt, said that most women who take hormone-replacement therapy never develop breast cancer and that most women who have breast cancer aren't on hormone replacement therapy. Pruitt said the company will present doctors and experts to show that Prempro did not cause Reeves' cancer.

"No one knows what causes breast cancer," Pruitt said. "It would be great if we did know."

The trial of Reeves' lawsuit, which began Tuesday with jury selection, is the first among 4,500 lawsuits filed nationwide challenging the hormone-replacement drug. A jury of nine women and three men will hear the case.

Littlepage had just started her opening statement before U.S. District Judge William R. Wilson Jr. on Wednesday when the courtroom's computers shut down their displays. Wilson delayed the rest of opening statements while technicians worked to restore the computers.

"This kind of thing makes me hate the 21st century," Wilson said.

Reeves argues in her suit that she developed breast cancer after taking Prempro for eight years. A Little Rock woman, Helene Rush, makes similar claims in another federal lawsuit against the drug maker and has an Oct. 10 court date.

Wilson told jurors he expects the case to last at least three, and possibly four weeks, and warned them he may hold court on at least one Saturday.

Prempro, on the market since 1994, is a widely prescribed estrogen-progestin combination used to treat premenopausal symptoms, such as hot flashes and night sweats.

A Women's Health Initiative study found that women who took Prempro had a higher risk of breast cancer, stroke and coronary heart disease. Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be

Copyright 2006 AFX News Limited. All Rights Reserved.