Similac NEC Side Effects Led to Preemie Spending Months in NICU, Mother’s Lawsuit Alleges

A Tennessee mother says her newborn would not have ended up in intensive care, suffering from necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) caused by Similac, if the manufacturer had warned doctors and families about the risks associated with use of the cow’s milk-based infant formula with preemies.

Maddolyn White filed the complaint (PDF) against Abbott Laboratories on August 1 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, pursuing damages for herself and her minor child, identified with the initials S.H.W.

The lawsuit claims that the child experienced devastating side effects from Similac, which resulted in the development of NEC while she was still in the NICU, and left the child with life-long injuries.

Although versions of Similac, and its Mead Johnson competitor, Enfamil, have been specifically promoted in recent years for use among premature infants, the lawsuits point to a growing body of evidence that has established cow’s milk formula dramatically raises the risk of NEC, which occurs when harmful bacteria breaches the walls of the intestines, causing portions of the tissue to become inflamed or die. The condition often results in the need for emergency surgery while the baby is still in the NICU, and many infants do not survive.

White’s lawsuit is just one of more than 1,000 Similac lawsuits and Enfamil lawsuits currently pending in both federal and state courts nationwide, each raising similar allegations that the manufacturers knew or should have known about the risks associated with their products, but provided false and misleading information for years about the risks compared to the use of human breast milk.

According to White’s complaint, S.H.W. was born prematurely in January 2012. Shortly after being born, hospital staff fed the child Similac cow’s milk-based infant formula.

“Days after being fed Defendant’s Cow’s Milk Products, S.H.W. developed NEC which resulted in two emergency surgeries and more than three months in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee,” White’s lawsuit states. “Due to the NEC, which was directly and proximately caused by Defendant’s Cow’s Milk Products, S.H.W. has suffered and continues to suffer from severe complications and injuries and continues to suffer severe negative long-term health effects.”

White indicates she was never informed of the risks of Similac NEC side effects, and if she had been, the mother never would have allowed hospital staff to feed the cow’s milk-based infant formula to her newborn child.

The lawsuit presents claims of design defect, negligence, failure to warn, and negligent misrepresentation, seeking both compensatory and punitive damages for White and her child.

August 2024 Similac NEC Lawsuit Update

White’s lawsuit was filed just days after a St. Louis jury ordered Abbott Laboratories to pay $495 million to an Illinois woman who’s newborn daughter suffered brain damage from the Similac NEC side effects.

The trial was being closely watched as a “bellwether” to gauge how juries may respond to certain evidence and testimony that may be presented throughout the litigation, and help determine the average lawsuit payouts families may be awarded after learning about the false and misleading information provided by the manufacturers for years regarding the NEC risks associated with their products.

While that trial was held at the state court level, the majority of Similac and Enfamil lawsuits are being pursued by U.S. families in the federal court system, where an infant formula MDL (multidistrict litigation) was established in 2022, centralizing the claims before U.S. District Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer in the Northern District of Illinois for coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings.

As part of the management of the litigation, Judge Pallmeyer has established a “bellwether” program, where a group of 12 NEC lawsuits brought against the two infant formula manufacturers are going through case-specific discovery, and the first federal NEC infant formula lawsuit bellwether trial is expected to begin on May 5, 2025.

Although the outcomes of these early trials will not have any binding impact on other claims that continue to be filed, the average payouts awarded by juries are likely to have a large influence on the amounts of any NEC settlements the manufacturers of Similac and Enfamil may be forced to pay to avoid hundreds of individual cases going before juries over the next few years.