Merck faces product liability lawsuit over HPV vaccine
The drugmaker is accused of putting 'profits over people' for not disclosing possible health issues tied to the Gardasil HPV vaccine.
Merck & Co. is facing a product liability lawsuit from a 22-year-old woman who took the drugmaker’s human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine as a teenager and then experienced a host of serious health issues, including daily seizures, convulsions and vision loss.
The suit was filed in federal court in Connecticut on March 30th.
Attorneys for Higganum, Conn., resident Korrine Herlth said they believe attorneys specializing in product liability and personal injury cases will be paying special interest to this lawsuit, and seven others filed against the company since the fall of 2020.
“Product liability attorneys will be watching this case and the others. This is a crucial health issue for everyone. Being a product liability attorney is like being a check and balances in the system. Litigation is actually what ensues when there is injury occurring based on either drugs or a vaccine,” said Nicole Maldonado, an attorney with Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman in Los Angeles, the lead firm in the litigation. “Product liability attorneys can take away from this lawsuit that it’s important to make sure there is full disclosure on the risk associated with drugs and vaccines.”
Maldonado said Herlth and her parents should have been informed that “there is autoimmune disease associated with the Gardasil HPV vaccine.”
‘Profits over people’
Merck and its sister company, New Jersey-based Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp, never notified the public or medical personnel through product inserts or labeling that the vaccine could cause autoimmune disease, Maldonado said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website, HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection. The website says there were about 43 million HPV infections in 2018, mostly among teens and young people.
Maldonado said that Herlth was an active teenager before taking two of three shots of the vaccine; at the time, Gardasil was administered in three doses.
The lawsuit says that soon after Herlth received her vaccines in 2013 when she was 15, she began experiencing dizziness, headaches and nausea. The complaint goes further to note that Herlth’s symptoms worsened as the months passed. In addition to seizures, vision loss and convulsions, the lawsuit says the girl also had balance difficulties, chronic fatigue, anxiety and panic attacks, sleep apnea, depression, cognitive difficulties and numbness in her lower extremities, among others side effects.
“Autoimmune disease is permanent and is not curable. There is treatment where you can control it, but it diminishes everything about who you were before you took the vaccine,” Maldonado said.
The attorney speculates that Merck doesn’t have warnings of possible autoimmune disease on its inserts or labeling “in order to make a profit. It’s about profits over people.”
Merck and its attorneys did not respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit, which is seeking unspecific monetary damages, cites counts for negligence, strict liability for failure to warn, strict liability for a manufacturing defect, breach of warranty, and common-law fraud.
Maldonado said the lawsuit serves two purposes.
“We want to help Korrine get the compensation she needs to take care of her for the rest of her life, that is one goal. We also want people to be put on alert and we want the information out there so people can make informed decisions,” Maldonado said.
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