Jury Says Hormone Not Responsible for Man’s Genital Defects at Birth
A Torrance Superior Court jury ruled Wednesday that the artificial hormone DES was not responsible for causing a man to be born with birth defects so severe that he was thought to be a girl until the age of 14.
Jurors deliberated less than two days before reaching an 11-1 verdict in favor of E. R. Squibb & Sons Inc., which manufactured DES until 1968. The company had claimed that the man’s condition was caused by a naturally occurring enzyme deficiency that caused him to be born a male “pseudo-hermaphrodite”--a congenital abnormality in which the person’s external genitalia resemble those of the opposite sex.
“I felt a great deal of sympathy for the man and I know he went through a lot of hard times and adjustments,” said Michael Pepe, a 27-year-old electronics technician who served on the eight-man, four-woman jury. “If there had been another piece of evidence to show DES caused his condition, I could have gone his way.”
Squibb attorney Ralph Campillo said he talked to nine of the jurors after the verdict was read and all stated that they felt there was no scientific evidence that DES caused the man’s condition. “They didn’t let their sympathy get in the way of their logic,” Campillo said.
The 38-year-old man, whose name The Times is withholding to protect his privacy, was in the courtroom when the verdict was read. He left immediately afterward, taking a private elevator reserved for judges and other court personnel. He declined to comment through his attorneys on the verdict.
However, one of his attorneys, Terence Mix, said he would file a motion seeking a new trial. If unsuccessful, he said he will appeal the verdict.
“He’s going to fight it,” Mix said, adding that he felt the evidence clearly showed that DES was responsible for the the man’s condition. “Win or lose, he felt his story needed to be told, and it has been told.”
Mix said Wednesday that two other drug companies originally named as defendants in the suit, Eli Lilly & Co. and Abbott Laboratories, settled out of court with his client. He said he was bound by a court order not to disclose the terms of the settlements.
Mix’s associate, Thomas Mehesan, predicted that despite the outcome of the trial, many more lawsuits would be lodged by men against drug companies who manufactured DES. “You are going to be hearing a lot more about this in the future,” he said.
DES, or diethylstilbestrol, was used by millions of pregnant women from the 1930s to the early 1970s to prevent miscarriages, and studies have linked it to vaginal and cervical cancer in the daughters of women who took it.
Although there are a host of DES-related lawsuits pending against drug companies, Campillo said he knows of no other case alleging that DES could cause the birth defects the man experienced.
Six-Year Suit
The man, who lives in Northern California, where he practices veterinary medicine, filed the lawsuit against Squibb six years ago contending that the DES his mother took to prevent miscarriage during her pregnancy in 1947 prevented the production of the hormone testosterone, which is necessary for male genitalia to develop properly.
The lawsuit claimed that Squibb acted negligently by failing to determine the effects of the drug on human embryos or fetuses and ignored laboratory research done with animals that indicated that sex hormones, including artificial ones like DES, interfere with genital development.
Reared as a girl named Kathleen until he was 14, the man underwent surgery in the early 1960s to have his testicles brought down from the abdomen and his penis reconstructed. After the surgeries, he was adopted by one of his school teachers in the South Bay, where he grew up.
During the five-week trial before Judge George Perkovich Jr., expert witnesses called by both sides gave conflicting testimony. For example, one physician called by the plaintiff testified that it is rare for a male pseudo-hermaphrodite to have the enzyme condition that Squibb maintained was responsible for his condition. On the other hand, a doctor called by the defense testified that DES does not affect fetal production of testosterone.
