NEW YORK - A judge overseeing the first trial over claims that Merck & Co.’s osteoporosis drug Fosamax causes “jaw-death’’ told the jury to take a day off after a juror said she was threatened.
A lawyer for a woman suing Merck asked US District Judge John Keenan in New York to declare a mistrial after a juror said a chair was thrown at her in the jury room. Keenan denied the request.
“I’m going to give you what we call a cooling-off period,’’ Keenan told jurors. He told them to resume deliberations tomorrow.
Paul Strain, a lawyer for Merck, said the claim that a juror was threatened was unsubstantiated and opposed the request for a mistrial.
Timothy O’Brien, a lawyer for plaintiff Shirley Boles, 71, declined to comment. A spokeswoman for Merck also declined to comment.
Merck faces hundreds of claims over the medicine.
They claim Merck failed to warn doctors and patients the drug might hamper blood flow to the jaw, causing jawbone-tissue death.
Merck has set aside about $42 million for the litigation, including legal fees. That amount did not include a reserve to pay damages.
Boles used Fosamax from 1997 to 2006 and by September 2003 had developed osteonecrosis of the jaw, according to her lawyers.
Her doctor prescribed Fosamax because of a stress fracture in her foot, she testified. She eventually developed problems in her mouth.
“I had a lump come up on my jaw,’’ she testified. “It was like a big lump and it was throbbing and painful.’’
Sales of Fosamax last year, when it first faced US generic drug competition, fell by half, to $1.55 billion, from 2007. Sales dropped 44 percent to $261.3 million in this year’s first quarter, Merck reported.
