http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/health/latestap/A36840-2001Jun23.html
Drug
Company Loses Defamation Suit
|
|
|
The Associated Press
Saturday, June 23, 2001; 7:25 AM
NEW YORK –– One of the world's largest pharmaceutical
manufacturers lost a defamation lawsuit for misusing a woman's photo in a
brochure for an AIDS drug, prosecutors say.
The woman sued Merck & Company and its New York advertising agency,
Harrison & Star, for improperly using her photograph in a brochure for
Crixivan, a drug to fight AIDS.
The brochure described the woman as a 19-year-old with two children and
suggested she had contracted AIDS and herpes through sexual promiscuity. The
woman, a suburban housewife and mother in her mid-30s, did not have herpes and
contracted HIV from her husband.
Judge Mary Werner granted a summary judgment in the case last week and
ordered a trial for compensatory and punitive damages, The New York Times
reported Saturday.
Court records were sealed to protect the woman's identity.
The woman had been recruited by a modeling firm and was paid an undisclosed
amount for the photos, her lawyer, Meredith Braxton, told the Times. She said
the woman signed a waiver when her photograph was taken but had expected it to
be used only for educational purposes.
Merck, based in New Jersey, was found to have acted with "actual
malice" because the "record establishes that the brochure was
published with the knowledge of the text's falsity," according to the
ruling.
Merck spokesman Gregory Reaves told the Times that the company
"certainly would not comment on pending litigation." The lawyer
representing Merck and Harrison & Star, Sara Lynn Edelman, could not be
reached for comment.
Braxton said her client would seek $72 million dollars because Merck made
$562 million in revenues in 1997, the year it created the marketing brochure
for Crixivan.
"The case is obviously important to our client because it vindicates
her and gives her a measure of satisfaction for all the damage and the pain
that was caused to her," Braxton said. "The broader message that is
important about this case is that big companies cannot play with the rights of
individuals with impunity."
© 2001
The Associated Press
ALL INFORMATION, DATA,
AND MATERIAL CONTAINED, PRESENTED, OR PROVIDED HERE IS FOR GENERAL INFORMATION
PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS REFLECTING THE KNOWLEDGE OR
OPINIONS OF THE PUBLISHER, AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED OR INTENDED AS PROVIDING
MEDICAL OR LEGAL ADVICE. THE DECISION WHETHER OR NOT TO VACCINATE IS AN
IMPORTANT AND COMPLEX ISSUE AND SHOULD BE MADE BY YOU, AND YOU ALONE, IN
CONSULTATION WITH YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER.