Merck Shingles Shot-Injury Plaintiffs Appeal Dismissal of Suits

More than 1,100 plaintiffs alleging Merck & Co.'s Zostavax shingles vaccine caused them to get shingles are appealing the dismissal of their lawsuits.

The suits were thrown out in December by the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, which said the plaintiffs failed to produce required documentation connecting their shots to their illness.

• Merck offered uncontradicted evidence that a lab test of a person’s shingles rash is the only way to tell whether the shingles was caused Zostavax or simply a reactivated wild-virus strain
• In March, Judge Harvey Bartle III ordered the plaintiffs to produce a lab ...