In an important decision affecting the nationwide "fen-phen" litigation, a three judge panel in Harris County Circuit Court in Houston ruled today that there was no admissible scientific evidence that phentermine causes primary pulmonary hypertension. The ruling came in response to a filing on this issue by the phentermine manufacturers defending the case, Fisons, Smithkline Beecham and Medeva Pharmaceuticals.
The combination anti-obesity therapy known as "fen-phen" has received considerable media and scientific attention since mid-1997, when the Mayo Clinic reported in the New England Journal of Medicine on a number of patients with valvular heart disease who had a history of taking "fen-phen." Fenfluramine and phentermine, which make up the anti-obesity therapy known as "fen-phen," are separate and distinct pharmaceutical products. Phentermine has been sold in this country since 1959 as an adjunct short term therapy with diet and exercise to treat obesity. Fenfluramine and dexfenfluramine were withdrawn from the market in September 1997 in the wake of the Mayo findings. Neither the U.S. Food and Drug Administration nor any other regulatory agency worldwide has recommended that phentermine be withdrawn from the market, and phentermine is still available to physicians today for the treatment of obesity.
Before entering its order today, the Court considered the current state of the medical and scientific evidence as presented by the parties to the pending litigation in sworn statements of prominent physicians and scientists who have examined the issue. This decision should exonerate the phentermine manufacturers and the physicians who prescribed phentermine, both of whom have commonly been sued along with the manufacturers of the withdrawn fenfluramine and dexfenfluramine products. It may also accelerate a recent trend in which litigants are voluntarily dismissing the phentermine manufacturers from their cases.
Source: http://www.euromeds.co.uk
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