Fen-phen users awarded $4,000

It's been seven years of legal slugfests over the diet drug combo "fen-phen" in the United States, although in Utah a number of lawsuits have been settled.

A jury in Pennsylvania on Friday awarded five Utah women $4,000 each after finding the pharmaceutical firm Wyeth negligent. The women in this particular case do not now have symptoms of heart valve damage, according to a trial witness, but potentially could have medical difficulties later, according to an Associated Press story.

People involved in fen-phen cases took the prescription medications fenfluramine (brand name Pondimin) and dexfenfluramine (brand name Redux) to aid in weight loss. The drugs were linked to valvular heart disease and pulmonary hypertension. In a July 1997 study, the Mayo Clinic announced it had found a rare heart-valve defect in 24 women who had taken the medications.

Pondimin and Redux were pulled from the market in 1997.

The first of several Utah class-action lawsuits against Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories Co., a division of American Home Products, was filed early in the fall of 1997. Others have followed.

Salt Lake attorney James Esparza, who filed the second Utah class-action lawsuit involving the diet drugs, said all his cases have been settled. His clients had "significant injuries" that will require careful medical evaluation for the rest of their lives, he said.

Several of them had heart valve replacement surgery, Esparza said, and many had moderate-to-severe "regurgitation," or blood flow backing up into the heart chamber, which can cause pressure.

Clients who had to have prosthetic valves surgically placed in their hearts will need to see their doctors periodically to monitor the valves and see that they're functioning properly, he said.

Esparza represented about 100 Utahns, mostly women.

The settlements with Wyeth were confidential.

The litigation was complex, but it essentially centered around claims that people who took this diet drug combination developed damage to their heart's mitral valve that caused it to not open and close properly. The cases also alleged that patients and doctors were not properly informed about the potential risks, especially concerning combining the two medications.

Is the damage permanent?

"I can only speak this way: We have not seen incidents where the condition has changed for the better," Esparza said, speaking of his clients. "That's what the science will suggest as well as support. I think Wyeth will obviously take a different position than that."