ST. LOUIS — In a verdict handed down Friday, a St. Louis jury ruled that the baby formula manufacturer Abbott Laboratories Inc. must pay $495 million to the family of a premature baby who developed a deadly disease after consuming formula containing cow's milk.
Abbott, the maker of Similac baby formula, was ordered to pay $95 million in compensatory damages and $400 million in punitive damages.
The suit was filed by Margo Gill on behalf of her child, Robynn, who developed necrotizing enterocolitis, or NEC, after ingesting Abbott's formula. Now 3 years old, Robynn has spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy due to a massive brain injury caused by the disease, is unable to walk or talk and is fed through a tube.
The suit claimed that Abbott knew of the increased risks of NEC in premature infants who ingest cow's milk-based formula but failed to adequately warn of them.
This is the second trial in the United States against a baby formula manufacturer regarding NEC.
In March, a jury in St. Clair County, Illinois, found Mead Johnson liable and awarded $60 million to a Fairview Heights mother who lost one of her twin premature babies to NEC.
Hundreds of NEC lawsuits are pending in court across the nation as thousands of parents have sued Mead Johnson and Abbott, hoping to change the way premature infants are fed in NICUs.
Study after study shows premature babies fed with cow’s milk-based formulas – as almost every formula is – are more likely to get NEC. The formula companies have argued those studies have limitations, but the research goes back decades.