Family award a billion (with a B) in "fen-phen" lawsuit

[onelove]

Originally posted by: illustri

Originally posted by: Hafen
Let me add a little insight to this, as I have several family members who work for Wyeth (including my wife.)

Phentermine has approved for sale by the FDA since 1959 and fenfluramine was approved by the FDA for use in 1973. Both were for short term use for anti-obesity. Wyeth (a division of American Home Products) manufactures these and a number of other diet drugs (although others manufacture these drugs as well.)

The drugs did not gain popularity and wide-spread use until the 90's, after a doctor published a study in which he administered both drugs simutaneously, lowered the dosage but extended precription length. This usage was never studied in clinical trials or formally endorsed by the FDA or Wyeth. However, reported efficacy increased the popularity, and soon the drug was being widely precribed by doctors for uses not originally intended by the manufacturer & FDA. Indeed, we all can remember the hype surrounding these "miracle diet drugs" during the 90's. The drug was not being precribed to the medically-needy obese, but to those who wanted to trim a few pounds. Pill-popping replaced diet and exercise for weight loss, and everybody bought into it. Ephedrine merely replaced phen-fen as the drug of choice and path to easy weight loss.

It was only after such widespread abuse did health risks begin to surface in a Mayo Clinic study was phen-fen prescription halted by the FDA. From this, lawyers, lawsuits and claimants came out of the woodwork. Now, Wyeth obviously was aware of the "off label" (or misprescribed) precription of its drugs, but did not vigorously fight the practice, sales of the drugs were booming. The question is whether it is fair to hold a single company culpable (to the tune of nearly $16B now) when so many were knowingly abusing its drugs? Are the punishments in-line with the injuries? What is the proper role of doctors in drug prescription? Very few have actually recieved signifigant injury, yet thousands have filed in the class-action, some after only taking a single dose. What does this and the myriad of other high-profile and high damage award cases in recent years say to the state of our legal system? These suits do not produce "free money." These awards have serious impacts for the rest of society in terms of loss of jobs & companies, and higher medical costs, drug prices and insurance costs.

Some useful links:
http://www.about-phentermine.com/fen.htm
http://www.heart-valve-replacement-surgery.com/history.html
http://www.fenphennews.com/fenphen/data.asp
too lazy to linkify, time to go home!

great post, its important to see all angles of the issue

yes, good post, Hafen - off-label prescription writing is the issue here. There is disproportionality between the FDA's intense regulation of drugs through the clinical trial process vs. once its out, its out w/ very little regulation except doctors regulating themselves (which, by and large, they do well).