Personal Injury Law

Staten Island Man Wins Polio Case Against Drug Maker

By Chrissie Cole

After 30 long years, Tenuto v. Lederle Laboratories comes to a close with a multimillion-dollar settlement.

Dominick Tenuto, a New York man stricken with polio won a multi million-dollar lawsuit against the drug maker claiming he contracted the disease 30 years ago from the polio vaccine given to his infant daughter.

Tenuto, who became ill in 1979 awarded $22.5 million in New York state court on Friday, one of the highest amounts ever paid on Staten Island.

The jury concluded that the Orimune vaccine his daughter received was 'unreasonably dangerous' and that drugmaker, Lederle Laboratories, was '100% liable' for his injuries. The jury also found the company failed to warn doctors of the vaccine's potential risks.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), between 1980 and 1998 – at a time when more than 300 million doses of the vaccine were distributed – 144 people in the U.S. contracted polio via a vaccine, including 86 vaccine recipients and 51 'contact' recipients.

Tenuto and his lawyers argued that the vaccine, which contained a live virus, passed through his daughters system and infected him. Tenuto, who is wheelchair bound, lost his job and sued two years after contracting polio.

The subsequent months were spent in intensive care on a respirator. 'I was on death's door,' Tenuto said.

After nearly two years of rehabilitation, his health improved but he remained partially paralyzed. He tried to go back to work, but the building wasn't wheelchair accessible.

Tenuto, said he plans to provide for his family, including two infant grandchildren, donate to charity, have his teeth fixed and move out of subsidized housing.

Lederle Laboratories says they plan to appeal. #

Full post as published by InjuryBoard on April 03, 2009 (boomark / email).