Wyeth Minnesota hormone law suit dismissed

US pharmaceutical major Wyeth says that the judge in the Hennepin County District Court in Minneapolis, Minnesota has granted the firm's motion for summary judgment on all claims and dismissed the case of Patricia Zandi versus Wyeth, which was scheduled for trial on January 28, 2008. In rulings on the admissibility of plaintiff's expert testimony and on the motion for summary judgment, the court found that the plaintiff had not offered any scientifically valid evidence to support her claim that she developed breast cancer as a result of her use of the hormone replacement agents Premarina and Premproa.

Judge George McGunnigle held that the plaintiff had "provided no evidence of a method generally accepted in the scientific community by which a doctor can determine the cause of breast cancer in an individual."

"In this case," the court elaborated, plaintiff's experts "purported to make a differential diagnosis. However, their attempt at differential diagnosis fails and is unreliable." The court concluded that "the scientific community has not accepted that breast cancer has a limited number of discrete and recognized possible causes such that ruling out one cause would implicate another."