 Alabama Man Awarded $2.5 Million in Damages After a Drug Allegedly Gave Him Breasts 
 
 A Philadelphia Common Pleas jury Tuesday awarded $2.5 million in damages to an Alabama man with autism who took the anti-psychotic drug Risperdal as a teen and grew size 46DD breasts, according to Thomas Kline , the man's attorney. "This trial is important publicly because it provided for the first time a window into the real risks of the drug," Kline told the Philadelphia Daily News It is the first of thousands of such cases nationwide – 1,200 are pending in the Philadelphia court alone – to get a jury verdict, Kline tells PEOPLE.His client, Austin Pledger, now 20, of Thorsby, Alabama, was ruled incapacitated by the courts, so his mother, Benita Pledger, testified about the impact instead, he says. A spokeswoman for Janssen, located in Titusville, N.J., said the firm is "disappointed" and "believes this verdict should be overturned," claiming that Risperdal's side effects were clearly communicated to Pledger, his family and the prescribing doctor. "Furthermore, the company says the drug has labels that detail the side effects, and Pledger's physician was aware of them as well.But Kline says Pledger's mother did not know about the risks when he began taking it in 2002 at age 8 to deal with the irritability associated with autism. At the time, Risperdal was not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in children - Pledger, who has autism, was 8 years old when the prescription was written - and its label reported that the risk of gynecomastia, a condition that causes men to grow female breasts, was low, according to Kline. However, in 2006, the FDA approved Risperdal's use as a schizophrenic aid for children and issued new label information that said the drug contained high levels of prolactin, a hormone that promotes breast growth, Kline said. She added that Pledger's "quality of life was significantly improved during the time he was taking Risperdal." For one, this was the first lawsuit claiming J&J hid the risks of gynecomastia to go to trial after a handful of cases were settled.
– A 20-year-old autistic man won a $2.5 million lawsuit against a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson Tuesday after his family and doctor say he developed 46DD breasts after taking an antipsychotic drug, the Philadelphia Daily News reports. Austin Pledger, from Thorsby, Ala., was first prescribed Risperdal, manufactured by Janssen Pharmaceuticals, in 2002 when he was 8; at the time, the drug wasn't FDA-approved for kids, and its label said risk was "low" for gynecomastia (the condition in which men's breasts grow larger), Thomas Kline, one of Pledger's attorneys, tells the Daily News. But when the FDA gave the green light in 2006 for the drug to be used as a schizophrenic aid for kids, new labels said the drug contained high levels of the hormone prolactin, which spurs breast growth, Kline adds. Pledger had started growing breasts by then—and now, the only way he can get rid of them is through a mastectomy, Kline says. A Janssen spokeswoman sent a statement to People noting the company is "disappointed" in the decision and that the drug's side effects were clearly spelled out for Pledger's family and prescribing physician. The spokeswoman also argued that Pledger's "quality of life was significantly improved during the time he was taking Risperdal," per the Daily News. But Stephen Sheller, another Pledger attorney, says "there was grave mistreatment of children" and that Johnson & Johnson "hid data from the FDA, prescribing doctors, and parents. Documents showed they knew there was much [a] higher percentage of children getting gynecomastia than they admitted," reports the Wall Street Journal. Still waiting to be settled in the Philly court system: more than 1,200 other cases against Risperdal, says Kline. (Another strange medical lawsuit: This man says his insurer is responsible for ruining his penis.)