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| PRODUCT LIABILITY |
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| Fraud Seen in Diet Pills' Marketing | ||
 'Fen-phen' and Redux have been advertised without regard for their safety, Laub and Lieff Cabraser allege.By Pamela A. MacLean Daily Journal Staff Writer Less than 24 hours after the release of a Mayo Clinic report warning of potential heart problems linked to diet pills known as "fen-phen" and Redux, two San Francisco firms on Wednesday filed a federal class action against nine manufacturers of the drugs The suit by attorney Arnold Laub, joined by Fabrice Nijhof of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, alleged the companies "fraudulently misrepresented" the severity and frequency of potential adverse health effects and failed to properly test fenfluramine and phentermine, diet drugs commonly called fen-phen. Also identified as an alleged health risk was dexfenfluramine, known as Redux. More than 18 million monthly prescriptions were issued by doctors last year for the fen-phen |
combination involving tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars in sales, according to the lawsuit, Gardner v. Gate Pharmaceuticals, C97-2542SBA. Laub said he expects the filing in U.S. District Court in San Francisco will make the two firms lead counsel in the case. He was aware of only one other lawsuit against makers of fen-phen and that is a state court action in Massachusetts filed May 5. The suit was filed late in the day and none of the defendants could be reached for comment. The release Tuesday of Mayo Clinic report suggests unusual valve heart disease in patients who had taken a combination of fen-phen. Although the Food and Drug Administration has approved each drug separately for use, the FDA has not approved them for use in combination, according to Laub. Some patients have shown signs of pulmonary hypertension, which is a sometimes fatal disease of the heart and lungs, according to the suit. Two named plaintiffs include Natalie Gardner of San Diego, who suffers from hypertension and may have to take medication as a result of fen-phen use, and Edward G. Baker of Zephyr Cove, Nev., who has exhibited less serious side effects allegedly related to Redux use, according to Laub. In August 1996, The New England Journal of Medicine |
released results of an international primary pulmonary hypertension study that suggested the use of fenfluramine-based diet drugs increased the risk of primary pulmonary hypertension 30 times. The drug makers were allegedly aware of the results of the study by November 1995 but, according to the lawsuit, "failed to apprise the public or physicians that the risk of contracting PPH has many, many multiples of that previously reported by the defendant companies in their literature." The lawsuit seeks medical monitoring of people who used the drug and may suffer adverse effects in the future. It also seeks general and punitive damages. The suit makes seven tort claims, including failure to warn, negligence, and breach of express and implied warranty, and seeks revised patient warnings along with monitoring. The pharmaceutical manufacturers named in the complaint include SmithKline Beecham Crp., A.H. Robins Co., Gate Pharmaceuticals, Richwood Pharmaceuticals, Ion Laboratories Inc., Medeva Pharmaceuticals and WyethAyerst Laboratories Co. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong in Oakland. Original Clipping (Warning: Large File, Long Download Time) Articles Page |