[New York, N.Y., June 25, 2010] A jury in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York found that Merck's osteoporosis drug Fosamax was defectively designed and unreasonably dangerous. As reported in the Wall St. Journal, the jury verdict raises serious questions about the safety of Fosamax for some patients. A medication widely prescribed for loss of bone density which might lead to osteoporosis, Fosamax has been linked not only to osteonecrosis of the jaw (a rotting of the jaw bone), but also more recently to serious fractures of the femur. In this landmark trial, 72 year-old Shirley Boles of Fort Walton Beach, Florida was awarded $8 million in compensatory damages after the jury found that Fosamax caused her disabling and disfiguring disease, osteonecrosis of the jaw. Ms. Boles's attorney Tim O'Brien summarized the findings, "This jury saw what we at Levin Papantonio saw in Ms. Boles. She's the world's bravest great-grandmother and this horrible injury never should have happened to her. But it did, so she took on a giant. And she won." Tim O’Brien has long discussed the dangers of Fosamax (see video interview on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go0eZqEFKx0 ) and is court appointed as lead counsel for the Plaintiffs' Steering Committee in the federal MDL (multi-district litigation) related to pending Fosamax injury claims. That the first jury to hear all the evidence about the problems associated with Fosamax, a drug in a class of medications known generally as bisphosphonates, may signal future concerns for its manufacturer Merck.

CASE SPECIFICS

Shirley Boles v. Merck & Company

Case Number: 1:06-CV-09455-JFK

United States District Court, Southern District of New York

Honorable John F. Keenan

Location of trial: New York, N.Y.

For the Plaintiff: lead counsel Tim O’Brien, assisted by Meghan McCormick and Ned McWilliams, all of the Pensacola, FL law firm of Levin, Papantonio, Thomas, Mitchell, Rafferty and Proctor, P.A.; co-counsel Gary Douglas of Douglas & London, and Jim Green of Ashcraft Gerel.   

Read the Wall Street Journal story here.

Read the Bloomberg Businessweek write up here.

Fosamax Litigation