Former Durango residents Rick and Karen Langhart are right in denouncing a settlement drug giant Merck is offering to settle lawsuits, claiming the company concealed potentially deadly side effects of its birth-control drug NuvaRing. The couple’s daughter, Erika, died at age 24 from heart attacks stemming from blood clots the Langharts say were caused by the drug.
The Langharts say to accept the payment would be to let Merck off the hook, not for money, but for the truth. And as painful as it must be to keep up the effort, they vow not to do that.
It is important to recognize the pain their courage could save other parents. The only way the truth about NuvaRing’s risks can be definitively known is for all the available information to be heard. Out-of-court settlements rarely offer anything like that. On the contrary, typically, the terms of any such settlement preclude further public discussion of the merits of the case.
That would be wrong, but it is often how things play out. And from Merck’s point of view, it is easy to see why.
Merck has offered to pay $100 million to the plaintiffs in about 3,800 lawsuits stemming from harm said to have been caused by NuvaRing. The way the proposal is structured, if 95 percent of the plaintiffs agree to the settlement by March 10, the company will pay the $100 million.
That sounds like a lot of money, and applied to any one individual or family, it would be. But spread out, it amounts to only about $58,000 per plaintiff – almost an insult for the loss of a daughter, especially if Merck knew of the drug’s dangers. Moreover, as reported by Vanity Fair, the $100 million amounts to less than one-sixth of the money Merck made in one year (2012) from that one drug.
Seen in that context, Merck’s offer – which includes no admission of wrongdoing or fault – is nothing more than part of the cost of doing business, a line item on a spread sheet akin to the electric bill or a marketing expense. For perspective, a similar case against the German pharmaceutical company, Bayer AG, over another birth-control product that led to strokes and heart attacks, produced a $1.6 billion settlement.
No wonder the Langharts are angry.
“Shame on them,” Rick Langhart told the Herald. “This settlement, orchestrated by Merck and the attorneys on both sides, driven by their own greed, has all but eliminated the chance for Merck to be taken to trial.”
His frustration is understandable. Any plaintiffs not party to the agreement can continue their lawsuits with the possibility that the ultimate outcome will be determined in court. But if all, or almost all, of the plaintiffs sign off on the deal, the case could be difficult to pursue. A lawsuit against a firm with the resources of a corporation such as Merck is a daunting proposition, one typically made possible only with thousands of plaintiffs and the potential for a payoff measured in multiple millions of dollars.
What is left to the Langharts is their determination to have their daughter remembered and the risks of NuvaRing exposed. An interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper has already been filmed. Their fear is that with the settlement, the public will lose interest in NuvaRing.
That would be a shame, for the memory of Erika Langhart and for the countless other young women who could be at risk from NuvaRing. But it will not be for lack of effort on the Langharts’ part. For that, they deserve our respect and our gratitude.
