Judge approves revision to diet drug settlement
August 26, 2004
By David B. Caruso
PHILADELPHIA - A judge on Thursday tentatively approved a revised legal settlement that will change the way the drugmaker Wyeth compensates thousands of people who suffered heart valve damage after taking the fen-phen diet drug combination.
Attorneys for the company and former users of its Pondimin and Redux pills said they hope the new deal, worked out earlier this month, will streamline the complicated and problem-wracked process used to determine who was harmed enough by the drugs to deserve a share of the multibillion-dollar settlement.
The agreement would set up a new $1.275 billion fund for about 40,000 people who suffered non-life-threatening valve damage from taking the drugs. Those people would get their money faster than under the initial settlement, approved in 1999, but could also receive significantly less cash.
The changes were made because of complaints about the claims review process, and concerns that so many people had filed claims that it could exhaust the original $3.75 billion settlement fund before every person was compensated.
U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III gave his consent to the amended deal Thursday. The proposal will now go back to the thousands of people who took the drugs, who will have the option of either participating in it, or rejecting it and pursuing individual lawsuits against the company.
As part of the deal, Wyeth would have the option to back out of the amended plan if too few people decide to accept it.
Wyeth pulled Pondimin and Redux, the fenfluramine half of fen-phen, from the market in September 1997 amid reports some users had heart valve damage and a few had a deadly lung condition. Fen-phen was never an FDA-approved combination, and the phentermine half is still sold.
Source:www.miami.com
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