Jury Awards $29M To Fen-Phen Users

An Oregon jury has awarded $29.1 million in damages to a 58-year-old bus driver and her son who said the diet drug combination fen-phen damaged their hearts.

American Home Products Corp. said it plans to appeal Tuesday's decision by a Coos County jury, which said the drug, sold under the name Pondimin, caused heart problems for Juanita Batson and Richard Wirt.

Fenfluramine, the "fen" in the drug combination, was withdrawn in September 1997 after a Mayo Clinic study linked it to potentially fatal heart valve damage. The second drug in the combination, phentermine, was not linked to any problems.

About 6 million people in the United States had been prescribed fen-phen by the time the study was released.

American Home Products, based in Madison, N.J., faces more than 9,000 lawsuits involving Pondimin. The company also made Redux, a related drug.

Batson used the fen-phen diet drug for nine months to a year. Wirt, 40, who works as a grocery store manager, took the drug for four months.

Their attorneys asked the jury to decide whether American Home Products knew or should have know of the drug's dangers and whether the two Bandon residents were harmed financially from their injuries. The jury also was asked to decide whether Dr. John Abbot was negligent in prescribing them the drug.

Mark Spooner, a lawyer representing American Home Products, suggested the plaintiffs' health problems could be related to heredity or age.

Spooner called the trial a "lottery litigation wherein the plaintiffs were absolutely healthy" until their attorneys "took them aside and told them they weren't."

The jury's decision came as a federal judge in Philadelphia decides whether to approve American Home's $3.75 billion plan to settle the majority of U.S. lawsuits filed by former fen-phen users.

About 1 percent of those have opted out of a national settlement deal that could make $3.75 billion available to users of Pondimin and Redux, As of May, the case had about 282,000 claimants.

In a separate case, Debbie Lovett of Grand Saline, Texas, was awarded $23.3 million nearly a year ago by a jury. The case was settled for less than 10 percent of that amount during an appeal.