Merck Awarded Summary Judgment on Warning Claims in Zostavax MDL Case

PHILADELPHIA — A Pennsylvania federal judge has awarded Merck summary judgment on failure-to-warn claims in a Zostavax injury case, finding the plaintiff failed to produce evidence that her doctor would have changed her prescribing decisions had she been given a warning linking peripheral neuropathy to the shingles vaccine.

In a March 16 order, Judge Harvey Bartle III of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania found that even if peripheral neuropathy is a “common” side effect of Zostavax, the doctor never said that knowledge of such a risk would have changed her decision to prescribe it to …