$5 Million Jury Award Against Tylenol In Death Of Year-Old Boy
A jury yesterday awarded a Philadelphia family $5 million in the death of their 1-year-old boy, who died after his parents gave him Infants’ Tylenol.
Marquis Dunson died in March 2002, just 12 days after his first birthday. The official cause of death, according to the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office, was acetaminophen toxicity.
His parents, Lisa and Martin Dunson, said they did not realize Infants’ Tylenol was concentrated - three times the strength of regular Children’s Tylenol.
“The important thing is that parents know there are potential problems with Infants’ Tylenol, and they have to be super careful,” said A. Roy DeCaro, the attorney who represented the Dunsons.
Marquis fell sick with a cold on March 16, 2002. His parents gave him Infants’ Tylenol. The box states that parents should call their doctor before giving the medication to any child younger than 2, but their doctor had recommended Infants’ Tylenol before.
They gave him two droppers every four hours. Marquis got sicker and sicker, but it did not occur to them that it was the Tylenol that was causing the problem, DeCaro said. DeCaro said the child should have been getting half a dropper as needed.
They had used the drug with their other four children without incident.
The Dunsons took Marquis back to the doctor on March 19. He was rushed to the hospital and pronounced dead about a half-hour later.
In closing arguments yesterday, the attorney representing defendant McNeil Consumer & Specialty Pharmaceuticals of Fort Washington said that the child was simply ill.
Attorney Robert Sparks said there was not enough of the drug in his system to be toxic.
“This child died of a virus … ,” he said.
The jury did not agree, returning with a verdict in less than two hours after the weeklong trial.
“We strongly disagree with today’s verdict and are considering other legal options,” said Michael J. Beckerich, a spokesman for McNeil.
The Dunsons were not available for comment, but their attorney called for stronger warnings about potential fatalities and a clear description that it is three times more potent than Children’s Tylenol.
Recently, McNeil did add a warning that multiple overdoses of all Tylenol medications can lead to liver toxicity.
Tylenol has come under fire recently. A study published this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that healthy adults had abnormal liver-test results after taking maximum doses of Tylenol for two weeks.
Nearly 40 percent of the people who took the equivalent of eight extra-strength Tylenol tablets a day, some with an opioid painkiller and some without, had test results that could signal liver damage, the article said.
McNeil has been responsive to problems with its products in the past.
When parents were pouring the Infants’ Tylenol into teaspoons and giving their children too much medication, the company developed a cap so that only the dropper could be used.