Wyeth Wins Menopause Drug Lawsuit

A federal jury ruled for Wyeth Pharmaceuticals on Thursday in the latest lawsuit claiming that the company's hormone replacement drugs cause breast cancer.

After deliberating for more than a day, a jury in Little Rock sided with Wyeth in a case filed by Helene Rush of Little Rock.

In her lawsuit, Rush accused the drugmaker of negligence in its hormone replacement therapy. More than 5,000 similar suits have been filed across the country.

Rush, 72, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999. Her attorneys say she took Wyeth's estrogen-progestin hormone therapy for nearly a decade.

Lawyers for Wyeth said Rush likely would have developed breast cancer regardless of whether she took Prempro because of genetic and health factors, such as weight gain and a history of smoking.

Prempro and another of Wyeth's hormone replacement drugs, Premarin, remain on the market and carry the approval of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Both continue to be prescribed annually to hundreds of thousands of women to alleviate symptoms of menopause.