Heartbreaking photos showing a twin baby who lived for just 25 days have been shared during an emotional lawsuit in which his parents won $60 million in compensation from a cow’s milk formula producer.
Jurors recently found global company Mead Johnson negligent for failing to adequately warn Illinois mother Jasmine Watson about the link between its product and the intestinal illness that killed her son Chance Dean in March 2020.
Chance weighed less than four pounds when he was born two months premature and spent his entire life in a neonatal intensive care unit near his family’s home in southern Illinois.
On day 12, he was given premature baby formula after Watson was unable to produce enough breast milk for himself and his twin brother, Chase.
Heartbreaking final photos showing twin baby Chance Dean, who lived just 25 days, have been shared during an emotional lawsuit in which his parents won $60 million in compensation from a cow’s milk formula producer.
Jasmine Watson sits with her partner, Cedric Dean, and their 4-year-old son Chase. Pictured on the pillow is Chance Dean, who died of NEC in March 2020.
Watson initially opted to feed the children a combination of her own milk and human breast milk from donor banks, but they were moved to a hospital where no donor milk was available and it was there that Chance began to deteriorate.
“He didn’t seem like he was feeling well,” said Watson, 25. ABC News“He looked uncomfortable.”
Chance was diagnosed with necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), a fatal intestinal disease that primarily affects premature babies. He had to undergo three surgeries to try to save his life.
But on the night of March 28, 2020, Chance died in his mother’s arms.
“At that point, I felt like the only thing I could do for him was be there,” Watson told ABC News. “I held him the whole time until his heart stopped beating.”
Chase, who received the same formula as Chance at the same time, did not develop NEC.
Four years later, jurors were shown harrowing photos of Chance wearing a tiny blue knit hat and a feeding tube in his nose as his family took global pediatric nutrition company Mead Johnson to court.
After a three-week trial, the jury found that Mead Johnson was negligent and failed to adequately warn Watson that the incidence of NEC is higher in formula-fed premature babies.
Watson’s attorneys hailed the victory as a historic triumph for the state of Illinois.
“For good reason, we believe this is the largest compensatory damages award in the history of St. Clair County and one of the largest in the history of the state of Illinois,” they wrote in a news release.
In a statement from its UK-based parent company Reckitt Benckiser, Mead Johnson said it was “shocked and deeply disappointed by the verdict” and pledged to “pursue all options” to overturn it.
“It is important to note that this is a unique verdict in a unique case and should not be extrapolated,” the statement said.
‘We continue to believe that the plaintiff’s attorneys’ allegations in this case were not supported by science or by experts in the medical community.’
Watson initially opted to feed the children a combination of her own milk and human breast milk from donor banks. But they were moved to a hospital where no donor milk was available, and it was there that Chance began to deteriorate.
The company also told ABC News that the verdict “sets a dangerous precedent that interferes with the practice of medicine and the doctor-patient relationship.”
But the lawsuit marks the beginning of a flood of similar litigation. There are more than 1,000 lawsuits pending in the United States involving 7,000 families whose premature babies died or suffered serious injuries from necrotizing enterocolitis, according to ABC News.
Parents allege that cow’s milk-based formulas for premature babies created by Mead Johnson and its main rival Abbott significantly increase the babies’ risk of contracting NEC.
Ben Whiting, a partner at Keller Postman, a national law firm that represented Watson and hundreds of other plaintiffs, told ABC News that producers need to have clearer messages so parents understand the risks.
“Our contention is that these formula manufacturers should, at a minimum, warn mothers, doctors, dietitians, nurses and hospitals about the risk of this horrendous disease that comes with switching premature babies from human milk-based formula to cow’s milk-based formula,” Whiting said.
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