A Mother from Missouri has sued Abbott, Reckitt\u2019s Mead Johnson and St. Louis Children\u2019s Hospital. She and her lawyers are aiming to convince a jury this week that the above company are responsible for a severe intestinal illness that she says her premature son got from the companies\u2019 formulas after he was born at the hospital.<\/p>\n
The trial which is happening in St. Louis, Missouri state court, begins with jury selection on Monday, is part of sprawling litigation that has already resulted in verdicts of $60 million against Reckitt and $495 million against Abbott. Close to 1,000 similar cases are still pending nationwide.<\/p>\n
The Plaintiffs argue that giving cow\u2019s milk-based formula to premature babies \u2013 especially the smallest ones, born weighing less than about 1,500 grams or about three pounds \u2013 greatly increases their risk of developing necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC). That condition has an estimated fatality rate of more than 20%. They also say the companies had a legal responsibility to warn about that risk but failed to do so.<\/p>\n
Both companies said in statements that the lawsuit\u2019s claims are not supported by evidence and that their products are essential for premature babies.<\/p>\n
St. Louis Children\u2019s did not respond to a request for comment on the litigation.<\/p>\n
Large verdicts in the two cases that have so far gone to trial have raised alarm among doctors who fear losing access to products they depend on to feed babies.<\/p>\n
Abbott and Reckitt are the only companies selling the formulas at issue, which are specialized products used in newborn intensive care units. In a July investor call, Abbott CEO Robert Ford suggested that they might become unavailable because of the litigation. Reckitt also said it was considering \u201cstrategic options\u201d for its formula division.<\/p>\n
The products for premature babies are not big sellers, bringing Abbott only about $9 million and Reckitt less than $1 million annually, according to company spokesperson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Mother from Missouri has sued Abbott, Reckitt\u2019s Mead Johnson and St. Louis Children\u2019s Hospital. She and her lawyers are aiming to convince a jury this week that the above company are responsible for a severe intestinal illness that she says her premature son got from the companies\u2019 formulas after he was born at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":50384,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173,249],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50380"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50385,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50380\/revisions\/50385"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}