A woman whose infant was born with facial deformations has successfully sued the maker of an anti-seizure drug she was prescribed while pregnant. 
The case, Gurley v. Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceutical is part of a larger mass tort action in the Philadelphia district courts against the makers of Topamax, a drug used to treat epilepsy and migraines. The master case is In re Topamax Litigation.
The bellwether cases here involved a stay-at-home mother who was prescribed the drug Topamax for treatment of epilepsy. She continued to take the drug through her pregnancy, as she had been told by doctors was safe. However, what she didn’t know was that the manufacturer, Janssen Pharmeceuticals, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, had long known that the drug caused serious birth defects. The plaintiffs would later argue that this was information that Janssen intentionally kept from both doctors and patients.
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