BOSTON

Four sisters, drugmaker reach settlement in DES suit

Four sisters who claimed in a lawsuit their breast cancer was caused by synthetic estrogen their mother took during pregnancy in the 1950s have reached a settlement with the drug company Eli Lilly and Co., a lawyer for the sisters said Wednesday.

Attorney Julie Oliver-Zhang said the settlement, for an undisclosed amount, was reached on the second day of a trial in U.S. District Court in Boston. They had not specified damages sought in the lawsuit.

The sisters’ case was the first to go to trial out of scores of similar claims filed in Boston and around the country. A total of 51 women have lawsuits pending in U.S. District Court in Boston against more than a dozen companies that made or marketed the drug.

DES, or diethylstilbestrol, was prescribed to millions of pregnant women over three decades to prevent miscarriages, premature births and other problems. It was taken off the market in the early 1970s after it was linked to a rare vaginal cancer in women whose mothers used DES.

Studies later showed the drug did not prevent miscarriages.

BROOKFIELD, Mass.

Bobcat that attacked man had rabies, officials say

The bobcat that attacked a Massachusetts man and his nephew had rabies. The Telegram & Gazette reports that state lab results on the dead animal were announced at Tuesday night’s select board meeting in Brookfield.

After pouncing on Mundell, sinking its teeth into his face and its claws in his back and holding him in what he described as a bear hug, the animal went outside and bit the 15-year-old boy.

Mundell shot and killed the bobcat.

He, his nephew and his wife — who was not bitten but got the animal’s blood on her — have already started rabies treatments.