Judge dismisses ‘defective’ pill claim

The High Court in England today dismissed a test case brought on behalf of more than 100 women who claimed that they had been damaged by the third generation contraceptive pill.

Mr Justice Mackay, in London, based his decision on an examination of scientific evidence given by ten epidemiological experts.

He had been told by Lord Brennan QC that some of the women were moderately injured, some suffered ‘‘disastrous’’ injury resulting in lifelong incapacity, and some had died.

Their case, the first of its kind under the Consumer Protection Act, was that the products they received were defective.

They claimed that the pills carried an increased risk of venous thrombosis embolism (VTE) compared with the previous generation and there should have been a warning to prescribers and users to view them as a second resort.

Dismissing the seven lead actions, the judge said that he was fully aware that the result would come as a ‘‘serious disappointment’’ to all the claimants.

‘‘It may or may not be any comfort to them to know that this trial was almost certainly the most exhaustive examination that this question has yet received and that their case could not have been more effectively put forward than it was by the highly skilled and dedicated legal team who acted for them.’’

The three manufacturers involved in the case - Organon Laboratories, Schering Healthcare and Wyeth - argued that the evidence was flawed by ‘‘bias or confounding’’ because of factors such as the women’s ages and new user effect.

They said the weight of the evidence was clearly against the conclusion that their products caused any increase in the risk of VTE.