• Women who took hormone replacement therapy after had menopause sharply increased risk of ovarian cancer, researchers in Denmark are reporting. Ovarian cancer is diagnosed in roughly 18 out of 100,000 U.S. women each year, and killed 15,000 Americans in 2007. (Full story)
     
  • The U.S. Supreme Court has dismissed cigarette giant Philip Morris's appeal of a $79.5 million punitive damage verdict awarded to the widow of a longtime smoker who died of lung cancer. In a terse one-sentence ruling, the high court allowed to stand a decade-old penalty imposed against the company by an Oregon jury. The widow’s husband was a two-pack-a-day smoker of Marlboro cigarettes, the premier Philip Morris brand. Because the three appeals took 10 years, the award has ballooned to nearly double the original sum because of compounding interest, and now totals $145 million. (Full story)
     
  • An Indiana jury awards a woman $8.1 million after finding that her odds of beating cancer were greatly reduced when a podiatrist failed to test tissue from an excised growth. The local podiatrist removed a growth from her big toe, but later said there was not enough tissue for testing. However, three podiatrists who reviewed the case concluded there should have been enough tissue for the test and the sample was likely lost in an office move. The 37-year-old mother of two is now in stage three of the cancer, and has a 17 percent chance of living another 12 years. (Full Story)