Fw: From St. Louis Post Dispatch ~ Bristol subsidiary loses $4.5MILLION

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Subject: From St. Louis Post Dispatch ~ Bristol subsidiary loses $4.5MILLION

> August 18, 2000

>

> Jury rules in favor of woman who sued over breast implant

> A St. Louis Circuit Court jury awarded $4.5 million Thursday to a woman

who

> blamed medical problems on a silicone-gel-filled breast implant found

> ruptured when a doctor removed it.

>

> Jurors ordered the implant's manufacturer, Medical Engineering Corp., to

> pay Haltom $2.25 million each in actual and punitive damages in

the

> product liability case.Her lawyer, Jeff Lowe, said Haltom, 57, of St.

> Louis, first got breast implants in 1982 because of a mastectomy of her

> right breast. In 1993 she had inflammation in her left breast, which a

> doctor blamed on silicone that leaked from the implant. Lowe said Haltom

> later had reconstructive surgery using abdominal tissue.

>

> Defense lawyers blamed surgical complications on Haltom's smoker's cough,

> which they said strained the abdominal area where tissue was removed.

>

> Medical Engineering, which produced implants under the name Surgitek, is

a

> subsidiary of Bristol-Meyers Squibb Co.

>

>

>