(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-12-01 18:55

RIO DE JANEIRO -- Brazil's Superior Court of Justice on Friday ruled that a lab should pay $560,000 in indemnities to the women who got pregnant after using false contraceptive pills nearly ten years ago.

The superior court maintained the decision made by Sao Paulo's state court, from which the lab Schering do Brazil had appealed. The lab stated that it had not been officially notified of the court decision and refused to make comments.

In 1998, about 200 women got pregnant after using the contraceptive pills, which were filled with flour and manufactured exclusively to test the medicine's packing process. About 600,000 such pills were mistakenly released into market that year.

So far, only 10 women have managed to prove that they were harmed in some way by the fake pills, while most victims had thrown away the packages which carried the serial number that identified the false pills.