After a fellow victim of the antipsychotic drug Risperdal won a £6 billion ($8 billion) payout, a boy who grew boobs ‘bigger than the girls at school’ while taking the drug is suing Johnson & Johnson.
Eddie Bible, from Oklahoma, has filed a lawsuit against the pharmaceutical company because the drug – which he was taking for anxiety and bipolar disorder at the age of 13 – gave him ‘man boobs’, a side effect that wasn’t disclosed at the time.
Now, the 26-year-old has undergone breast reduction surgery, and says the adverse consequences of the antipsychotic were not as advertised – bringing on a condition known as gynecomastia.
Bible joins the thousands of people that are filing lawsuits over the drug to Johnson & Johnson, according to the MailOnline.
In an interview with CNN, Bible said:
Bible added that people would point and stare in the locker room, and that if he’d known what the side effects would be of the medication, he’d never have taken it. ‘Everybody picking on you for being a boy with boobs… It’s just… depressing,’ Bible said.
In a statement to CNN, Johnson & Johnson said on behalf of its subsidiary Janssen that it considers Risperdal ‘essential to helping those affected by mental illness… physicians decide how best to treat their patients’.
However, the controversial drug was pulled from market in 2014, and now people want compensation.
Bible’s lawsuit comes after Nicholas Murray, 26, was awarded a massive payout of £6 billion ($8 billion) by a Philadelphia jury on Tuesday (October 8).
Murray’s lawyers accused Janssen of putting ‘profits over patients’ – however, Johnson & Johnson, which is appealing the ruling, called the payout ‘grossly disproportionate’ and ‘a clear violation of due process’, according to the BBC.
Murray was also awarded $680,000 in compensatory damages in 2015 – again for claims the drug was improperly advertised.
As reported by The Sun, Penney & Associates Injury Lawyers says that ‘over 13,000 plaintiffs are expected to file a pharmaceutical injury lawsuit against J&J’.
As well as the cases involving Risperdal, Johnson & Johnson is also involved in court challenges over vaginal mesh implants and baby powder allegedly tainted with asbestos, as well as queries over its role in the US opioid crisis.
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