Altered testimony, allegedly hidden statistics and the enlarged breasts of a boy throughout his high school years were the focus of contentious closing arguments in the ongoing Risperdal trial.
Thomas R. Kline of Kline & Specter, who is representing Timothy Stange in Stange v. Janssen Pharmaceuticals, argued Thursday that Janssen Pharmaceuticals failed to turn over data linking the antipsychotic drug Risperdal to the condition called gynecomastia, which causes excessive growth of breast tissue in males. Kline said the omitted statistics and allegedly inadequate warnings led a pediatric neurologist to prescribe Risperdal to Stange when he was about 12 years old. According to Kline, the drug then caused Stange’s breasts to grow and remain enlarged until he had a double mastectomy when he was 18 in 2012.
