Autistic Alabama man awarded $2.5 million after growing 46DDD breasts

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A 20-year-old Thorsby man with autism was awarded $2.5 million in damages on Tuesday by a Philadelphia jury that found a drug he began taking as a child caused him to grow large breasts and that his family was not "adequately warned" of this side effect, according to a report by The Philadelphia Daily News.

A Common Pleas jury found that Austin Pledger, his family and his doctor were not aware that the drug Risperdal -- an anti-psychotic made by Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson -- could cause him to grow 46DD breasts, Pledger's attorney Thomas Kline told the Daily News.

The trial "provided for the first time a public window into the real risks of this drug," Kline told the paper.

Pledger was first prescribed the drug by his family physician in 2002, when he was eight years old, to help with the irritability associated with autism, according to a report by People magazine.

At the time, the drug's label reported that the risk of gynecomastia, a condition that causes men to grow female breasts, was low, according to Kline.

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