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Rabat – A US court has ordered on Friday Abbott Laboratories to pay $495 million in damages after ruling that the company’s specialized formula for premature infants caused a young girl to develop a life-threatening bowel disease.
The trial is the first trial among hundreds of similar lawsuits pending against the healthcare giant.
Illinois resident Margo Gill brought the case against Abbott, alleging that the company failed to warn that its formula could cause necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), a potentially deadly disease in premature babies.
The jury awarded Gill $95 million in compensatory damages and an additional $400 million in punitive damages.
“Companies need to be honest about their products, about the good and the bad,” said Gill’s attorney, Jack Garvey. “When there is a risk of using a baby formula for preterm infants, parents have a right to know what the problems are.”
NEC causes the death of bowel tissue and primarily affects premature newborns, with a fatality rate ranging from 15% to 40%.
Gill’s daughter, Robynn Davis, developed NEC after being given Abbott’s premature infant formula while in a neonatal intensive care unit in 2021.
Although Robynn survived, she suffered irreversible neurological damage and will require long-term care.
Abbott has expressed strong disagreement with the verdict and plans to appeal.
“Verdicts like these, where the science and opinions of healthcare professionals who spend their lives treating these babies are ignored, make it difficult to continue supplying these products indefinitely,” said Abbott spokesman Scott Stoffel.
Abbott maintains that specialized formulas and fortifiers are often the only viable options for feeding premature infants.
During the trial, Abbott’s lawyers argued that Robynn’s long-term injuries were caused by birth trauma that deprived her brain of oxygen, not by the formula.
They acknowledged that while mother’s milk reduces the risk of NEC, specialized formula can be essential and life-saving for premature babies.
This case is the first of nearly 1,000 lawsuits filed against Abbott and Reckitt Benckiser, the maker of Enfamil, over claims related to NEC.
The lawsuits claim the companies failed to warn that their formulas increase the risk of NEC compared to breastfeeding or donor milk.
