Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 24, 1994                   TAG: 9403240175
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BREAST-IMPLANT MAKERS TO PAY $3.7 BILLION

In the highly complex settlement, the companies - the Dow Corning Corp., the Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and the Baxter Healthcare Corp. - will pay women specific amounts for injuries.

"We finally did it," said Gary Anderson, Dow Corning's executive vice president.

The agreement still must be approved by the companies' boards of directors and by Judge Sam Pointer of federal District Court in Birmingham, Ala. Even if he approves it, the settlement can crumble if too few women sign up. But if it goes through, it will clear the courts of many of the 12,000 cases involving more than 25,000 women who had implants and say they were injured.

The manufacturers of the implants say there is no scientific evidence that they are harmful, and they are agreeing to the settlement to put the expensive litigation behind them. Dow Corning agreed to pay $2.018 billion; Bristol-Myers, $1.154 billion; and Baxter Healthcare, $555 million.

An estimated 1 million to 2 million women had silicone breast implants in the last 25 years. Some women and doctors say that the devices caused a variety of diseases, including autoimmune disorders such as lupus and connective tissue disorders such as scleroderma, a progressive hardening and thickening of the skin and internal organs.

Geoffrey Miller, a law professor at the University of Chicago who studies large class-action lawsuits, said the agreement was unprecedented because of its size and complexity. "It's going to be a model for future class-action litigation," he said.

Anderson said the settlement was at least twice as large as the largest previous class-action agreement, the asbestos litigation.

The agreement provides that set amounts will be paid to women with specific medical conditions, with no requirement that they show that their implants caused the disorders. But the fees can be reduced if too many women sign up. If that happens, the women can decide to drop out of the class-action agreement.

The companies also can opt out if too few women sign up. "We can't pay both the immense costs of litigation and the settlement," said Michael Jackson, a spokesman for Dow Corning, whose ownership is divided equally between the Dow Chemical Co. and Corning Inc.

But Ralph Knowles, a co-chairman of the plaintiffs' negotiating committee, said that if the companies backed out, the settlement probably would collapse. "If any defendant walks away, we, the plaintiff's settlement committee, can say, `This is so significant that we are cratering the deal,' " Knowles said.

Although the amount of money that the three companies agreed to pay sounds large, part of it will be paid by insurance companies and part in money whose value would be eroded by inflation.

The agreement culminates two years of negotiations between lawyers for women who had implants and the companies that made them.