PPH NEWS is an education-based resource site that provides information on the health issues surrounding Primary Pulmonary Hypertension (PPH), including what it is, the symptoms, diagnoses, and treatment options.
This website also provides resource to learn more about your legal rights and remedies if you or someone you know has developed PPH due to the use of diet drugs such as Fen Phen.

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Heart Disease and Fen Phen

An estimated 25 million prescriptions were written for the drug combination called fen phen, a diet drug that was highly popular in the mid-90s. Despite its instant success among Americans, health experts warned early on that fen phen should be reserved only for the severely obese. Not only did fen phen’s fat melting result seem too good to be true, but also the FDA never approved the drug combination.

A former FDA reviewer, Leo Lutwak, was concerned with fen phen’s serious side effects for years before fen phen was eventually recalled in 1997. According to internal documents, Lutwak wrote an email to a colleague on September 24, 1996 saying, “The company has gotten away with much manipulation these past 3 years, of the public, of the press, of the FDA.” Lutwak said, “I started getting upset about this drug in ’93 or ’94 and was running into a lot of blocks from the FDA and from the drug company.”

Months before fen phen was recalled, Mayo Clinic researchers concluded the fen phen combination could have important implications regarding heart valve disease. The preliminary findings were so concerning the New England Journal of Medicine released the information early, in an unusual move, because of the potential impact on public health. The FDA reacted to the Mayo Clinic’s heart disease warning by sending letters to thousands of doctors asking them to immediately check fen phen patients for valve problems and report them to the agency.

After fen phen was taken off the market in September 1997, cardiologists issued guidelines for former diet drug users, urging them to see their doctors to check for possible heart valve disease. Especially fen phen users taking the drug for a long time or at higher doses were said to be at greatest risk for heart disease.

In 1999, in the largest study of its kind, researchers found people taking fen phen for longer than six months experienced heart valve disease at an unusually high rate. The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology. According to the study, people who never took fen phen had a 3.6 percent incident rate of heart valve disease. Of 1,163 former fen phen users included in the study, people who had taken the drugs for less than six months had a 4.5 percent incident rate, which increased to a 7.0 percent incident rate of heart disease among people who took the drug for six months to a year.

Once users had exceeded one year on fen phen up to two years, the rate increased to nearly double the incident rate of the heart disease to 13.6 percent. At more than two years, the rate was a high 17.4 percent.

Wyeth, maker of fen phen, shocked Wall Street at the close of January 2005 with a $1.76 billion fourth quarter loss sending its stock price lower on reports of higher than expected litigation and development costs. The company already put $16.6 billion in its fen phen reserve, but the company said it set aside an additional $4.5 billion in the fourth quarter and warned that more charges could come. By the end of 2004, Wyeth had paid out $13.9 billion. Ever since fen phen was withdrawn, lawsuits brought by people who suffered heart disease have caused financial hardships for Wyeth.

Wyeth said as many as 61,000 fen phen cases have yet to be resolved out of more than 70,000 filed so far. Contact Us if you have sustained any deadly health complications such as primary pulmonary hypertension to collect your claims.

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