Similac and Enfamil baby formulas have been linked with necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) in preterm or premature infants.
Lawsuits allege that Similac and Enfamil have caused NEC in premature or preterm infants, that their manufacturers knew or should have known about this danger, and that their manufacturers failed to warn about this danger.
Call us today for a free consultation or text us from this page if your child developed NEC after being given Similac or Enfamil while in the hospital or in a neonatal intensive care unit. You may be entitled to financial compensation. We won’t charge a fee until and unless we win your case.
2023 Similac And Enfamil Baby Formula NEC Lawsuit Updates
There are now over 210 Enfamil lawsuits and Similac lawsuits which have been filed in federal court against Mead Johnson and Abbott by the families of infants who received NEC diagnoses after drinking the formula. These lawsuits have been consolidated into a multidistrict litigation (MDL). U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer is overseeing the MDL in Illinois’ Northern District.
The NEC lawsuits make similar claims, claiming that Abbott and Mead Johnson specifically marketed formula and fortifier based on cow’s milk for preterm newborns to use without warning families, doctors or hospitals that these products raise the risk of developing NEC in preterm newborns. Attorneys are currently investigating and filing additional claims, and the ultimate expectation is that the MDL will consist of several thousand NEC lawsuits.
On November 10, 2022, a proposed schedule for bellwether trial cases in the federal NEC baby formula multidistrict litigation was submitted to the court. The schedule calls for case-specific fact discovery to finish by April 2023, and for a pretrial conference to take place in March 2024, during which the start of the initial jury trials will be discussed.
As part of the multidistrict litigation’s pretrial schedule, NEC settlement talks have been scheduled for the time period from October 15 to October 27, 2023. These talks may move things forward towards negotiations regarding an agreement which would settle claims against Abbott Laboratories and Mead Johnson.
The results of the initial bellwether trials won’t have a binding impact on subsequent claims. However, they will likely substantially impact NEC settlements which Abbott and Mead Johnson might offer in order to avoid individual cases being remanded to district courts for separate, future trials.
The first trial is scheduled for March 11, 2024. Discovery is in progress in preparation for this trial.
Abbott also faces a class-action suit, filed in November 2021, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois. This lawsuit accuses Abbott of falsely, deceptively and misleadingly marketing that Similac Pro-Advance formula is comparable to breast milk. The lawsuit notes that the product’s labeling claims that the formula is “our closest formula to breast milk.” However, no scientific study has suggested that baby formula and human milk are similar, and the World Health Organization’s International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes disallows claims idealizing infant formula.
