Jun 18, 2008 1:39 pm US/Pacific
Motrin Trial Witness: Girl 'Suffers Every Second'
MALIBU
An opthamologist testified Wednesday at a trial against the maker's of Children's Motrin that a girl who took several doses of the medicine in 2003 "suffers every second" from a disease caused by a rare reaction to the drug.
Dr. Scheffer Tseng said the drug caused Sabrina Johnson to lose her vision and suffer "the worst eye disease we know of." He also said that the drug left her with the permanent sensation of having sandpaper in her eyelids.
He also said opportunities to save her vision and prevent lingering pain were lost because treatment for her very-rare allergic reaction to Children's Motrin did not begin immediately after she came down with the violent response.
Tseng's testimony came on the first full day of testimony in a product-
liability lawsuit brought by Sabrina Johnson and her parents against Johnson & Johnson and its wholly owned subsidiaries that manufacture and market Motrin, its brand of ibuprofen pain reliever.
In 2003, Sabrina's mother gave her three doses of Motrin to fight a fever.
Sabrina's parents charge that they, their pediatrician and doctors at Cedars- Sinai Medical Center were all unaware of the potential for life- and vision- threatening allergic reactions because Johnson & Johnson intentionally hid clinical evidence of such results from federal regulators.
In his opening arguments, the family's attorney, Browne Greene, said Tuesday that the drug company decided the small chance of a child being killed or blinded was "the cost of doing business" to protect a $1 billion-per-year profit from Motrin sales.
Company attorneys vigorously denied that claim and told jurors that Children's Motrin is safe and effective, and that the drug did not cause Sabrina Johnson to lose her vision and suffer agonizing burns in her mouth, nose and every other body orifice.
In testimony today, Tseng said the rare allergic reaction, coincidentally called Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, "is like a burn, but it's not from the outside of the body from a fire or a chemical. It's from the inside."
"Somehow, the body has decided to attack itself," the Miami opthamologist testified.
Tseng said he had to sedate the girl in operating rooms just to examine her eyes, and said the girl has had 24 surgical sessions in the last four
years.
Sabrina Johnson, who is now 11, is also scheduled to testify at trial.
Tseng, a surgeon and professor at a Miami eye institute, ruled out
herpes and chicken pox as possible causes of the disease. Johnson & Johnson attorneys have raised the possibility that other sickness caused the burns.
Earlier in the day, a drug company legal official testified that the Motrin brand is worth about $1 billion in sales to the company, which has a
current valuation of about $43 billion.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)
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