Jury Says Dow Chemical Hid Breast-Implant Perils

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Jury Says Dow Chemical Hid Breast-Implant Perils

August 19, 1997

http://www.sltrib.com/97/aug/081997/nation_w/32798.htm

LOS ANGELES TIMES

A New Orleans jury hearing the first U.S. class-action

trial on silicone breast implants found Monday that

Dow Chemical Co. knew that silicone was potentially

harmful to humans and conspired with the major

manufacturer of the devices to withhold safety data

from women.

The verdict came in the first phase of a trial in

which 1,800 women have sued Dow Chemical claiming that

silicone that leaked into their bodies from damaged

implants caused a variety of devastating diseases.

The Louisiana verdict is the third and biggest case to

go against Dow Chemical in breast-implant litigation,

and increases the likelihood that the company could

face massive liability in the thousands of similar

cases pending across the country.

The ruling probably will reignite debate about the use

-- and misuse -- of science in the courtroom that is

at the heart of the bitter controversy about breast

implants. As companies have been hit with

multimillion-dollar verdicts about their roles in the

breast-implant business, critics have lashed out at

plaintiffs' lawyers and juries for ignoring a growing

body of scientific studies that have found no link

between implants and disease.

``What we've learned today is that in spite of

overwhelming scientific and medical evidence to the

contrary, plaintiffs can get a verdict against a

company that is baseless,'' said Lorna Propes, an

attorney for Dow Chemical.

But Ernie Hornsby, an Alabama attorney representing

plaintiffs in the New Orleans trial, said the jury

firmly rejected Dow Chemical's contention that it had

no part in the breast-implant issue.

He noted that jurors answered ``yes'' to each of seven

questions regarding Dow Chemical's role in the testing

of silicone gel and the suppression of data.

``Clearly, the jury unanimously felt that silicone

implants are capable of causing harm,'' Hornsby said.

``From day one, there was an attempt to hide the real

dangers of this product.''

In the second phase of the trial, due to start next

month, the jury will be asked to decide whether the

illnesses claimed by the eight defendants who are

representing the 1,800 women were caused by silicone

implants and whether Dow Chemical should be held

liable for their injuries.

Plaintiffs' lawyers said the jury's ruling bodes well

for their side in the trial's second phase. They noted

that jurors heard several weeks of evidence from

medical experts -- most of them called by Dow's

lawyers -- about the possible link between implants

and connective-tissue diseases such as lupus and

scleroderma.

Many researchers and regulators have dismissed women's

claims that silicone breast implants have caused

disease. Major studies have found that women with

implants were no more likely to suffer from

immune-system diseases than women without implants.

Plaintiffs' attorneys have faulted those studies,

arguing that women are suffering from new

immune-system diseases that those tests were not

designed to detect.