Carter Albrecht’s Family Files Suit Against Pfizer

The suit seeking a jury trial to determine whether Pfizer is liable in Carter Albrecht’s death was prepared by Barrett Stetson and Thomas Moynihan. A quick read-through of the 36-page document gives me the impression that they did their homework on the science and marketing of the smoking-cessation drug Chantix. The fact that Pfizer has already changed its label to warn about serious neuropsychiatric side effects wouldn’t seem to bode well for the drug maker. But it’s easy to see the tack the defense would take if this ever went to trial: Albrecht was drunk the night he was shot while banging on his neighbor’s door, and the coroner couldn’t say that Albrecht even had Chantix in his system that night — because only Pfizer knows how to test for the drug.