One of the largest verdicts in the history of defective drug cases came last year, when a Missouri jury awarded $23 million to a family whose daughter was born with birth defects related to the mother’s Depakote use.
Drug manufacturer Abbot Laboratories currently faces about 800 lawsuits stemming from the popular anti-seizure medication and its link to birth defects. The drug’s popularity peaked in 2007 with over $1.5 billion in sales. But at roughly the same time, the federal government insisted that the manufacturer include additional warnings on the label; in 2010, the New England Journal of Medicine published a major study on the subject. Two years later, Abbot Laboratories paid $1.6 billion to settle state and federal government claims regarding deceptive marketing practices.
With regard to the St. Louis lawsuit and verdict, a company spokesperson insisted that the plaintiff “made an informed decision” to take Depakote during her pregnancy.
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