Drugs, Breast Cancer Suits Can Proceed

The U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday rejected a petition by several drug makers, allowing lawsuits over an alleged link between drugs and breast cancer to proceed.

The U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday rejected a petition by several drug makers, allowing lawsuits over an alleged link between drugs and breast cancer to proceed.

The three lawsuits involving more than 100 women were filed in a Minnesota court in 2008 and contended there was a link between hormone-therapy drugs used to treat menopause and breast cancer, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The suits alleged drug manufacturers had hidden the connection between the drugs and breast cancer.

The drug manufacturers, including two Pfizer Inc. subsidiaries, wanted to move the cases to consolidate them with others pending in the federal courts, the report said. Moving the cases from state to federal court would have trimmed the list of 100 state plaintiffs, the Journal said, because many of them already had filed separately in federal court.

The drug makers alleged that the Minnesota suits had fraudulently tried to keep the cases in state court.

Eventually, a