MEDIA RELEASES
PRESS RELEASE
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A man who received a powerful jolt of electricity when a cable from a city trolley bus allegedly struck him in downtown San Francisco last month has sued the city.
In his claim, filed Tuesday, the San Francisco man, 46, says he has spent more than $50,000 in medical bills since the accident and claims he now suffers from seizures, double vision, headaches and pain in his right leg.
On June 25th, one of the cables of the San Francisco Municiple Railway trolley bus became disconnected from the overhanging power lines just as the man was passing near by. The cable sent 600 volts of electricity through his body.
PRESS RELEASE
July 9, 1997
25-YEAR OLD WOMAN DIES AS A RESULT OF A BRAIN ANEURYSM SUFFERED WHILE TAKING DIET DRUGS, FEN-PHEN.
THE LAW OFFICES OF ARNOLD LAUB and the law offices of LIEFF, CABRASER, HEIMANN & BERNSTEIN, LLP announce an investigation into the new study of brain damage caused by taking diet drugs.
The Law Offices of Arnold Laub and the law offices of Lief, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein, LLP announce the filing of a class action lawsuit in the San Francisco federal district court naming as defendants the manufacturers of the presciption diet drugs known as Fenfluramine, Phentermine (a.k.a. Fen-Phen), and Dexfenfluramine (a.k.a. Redux). According to a study by the Mayo Clinic and the International Primary Pulmonary Hypertension Study, this combination of weight-loss drugs may have deadly side-effects.
A Mayo Clinic report released yesterday, July 8, 1997, reports a clinical observation of unusual valvular heart disease in patients who had taken a combination of Fen-Phen. Some of the patients had newly documented pulmonary hypertension, a sometimes fatal disease of the heart and lungs. The lawsuit requests as part of its prayer that there be a medical monitoring fund established to enable those people who have taken these diet supplement prescription drugs to monitor the existence of dangerous side effects that may have been caused by the drugs. Doctors wrote an estimated total of 18 million monthly prescriptions for these drugs in the United States last year alone.
The Fen-Phen and Redux medications were widely and agressively advertised as the medications that would allow you to eat and live like a "normal" person. The drugs used in combination appear to pose risks of severe, possibly life threatening, health problems and were never authorized by the FDA to be used in combination.
Cases of pulmonary hypertension have also occurred in people taking Dexfenfluromine, or Redux, a similar anti-obesity drug that received FDA approval last year. A director of the FDA's metabolic and endocrine drug products division said, "we are extremely concerned" about potential complications from these drugs.
Although the FDA has approved Fenfluramine and Phentermine separately, the FDA has not approved these drugs for combination use. The lawsuit alleges that the manufacturers and distributors of these drugs knew of and encourage the prevalence of the off-label use of their drugs, and failed adequately and appropriately to warn physicians and consumers that their Fen-Phen drug regimen was not FDA approved, was not recommended, and had not been systematically tested by appropriate clinical trials.
PRESS RELEASE
THE LAW OFFICES OF ARNOLD LAUB and the law offices of Lief, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein, LLP announce the filing of a class action lawsuit in the San Francisco federal district court naming as defendants the manufacturers of the presciption diet drugs known as Fenfluramine, Phentermine (a.k.a. Fen-Phen), and Dexfenfluramine (a.k.a. Redux).
SAN FRANCISCO
1390 Market Street, Suite 1210, San Francisco, California 94102
415-252-0500
PRODUCT LIABILITY
Fraud Seen in Diet Pills' Marketing
'Fen-phen' and Redux have been advertised without regard for their safety,
Laub and Lieff Cabraser allege
By Pamela A. MacLean
Daily Journal Staff Writer
Less than 24 hours after the release of a Mayo Clinic report warning of potential heart problems linked to diet pills known as "fen-phen" and Redux, two San Francisco firms on Wednesday filed a federal class action against nine manufacturers of the drugs.
The suit by attorney Arnold Laub, joined by Fabrice Nijhof of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, alleged the companies "fraudulently misrepresented" the severity and frequency of potential adverse health effects and failed to properly test fenfluramine and phentermine, diet drugs commonly called fen-phen. Also identified as an alleged health risk was dexfenfluramine, known as Redux.
More than 18 million monthly prescriptions were issued by doctors last year for the fen-phen combination involving tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars in sales, according to the lawsuit, Gardner v. Gate Pharmaceuticals, C97-2542SBA.
Laub said he expects the filing in U.S. District Court in San Francisco will make the two firms lead counsel in the case. He was aware of only one other lawsuit against makers of fen-phen and that is a state court action in Massachusetts filed May 5.
The suit was filed late in the day and none of the defendants could be reached for comment.
The release Tuesday of Mayo Clinic report suggests unusual valve heart disease in patients who had taken a combination of fen-phen. Although the Food and Drug Administration has approved each drug separately for use, the FDA has not approved them for use in combination, according to Laub.
Some patients have shown signs of pulmonary hypertension, which is a sometimes fatal disease of the heart and lungs, according to the suit. Two named plaintiffs include Natalie Gardner of San Diego, who suffers from hypertension and may have to take medication as a result of fen-phen use, and Edward G. Baker of Zephyr Cove, Nev., who has exhibited less serious side effects allegedly related to Redux use, according to Laub.
In August 1996, The New England Journal of Medicine released results of an international primary pulmonary hypertension study that suggested the use of fenfluramine-based diet drugs increased the risk of primary pulmonary hypertension 30 times.
The drug makers were allegedly aware of the results of the study by November 1995 but, according to the lawsuit, "failed to apprise the public or physicians that the risk of contracting PPH has many, many multiples of that previously reported by the defendant companies in their literature."
The lawsuit seeks medical monitoring of people who used the drug and may suffer adverse effects in the future. It also seeks general and punitive damages.
The suit makes seven tort claims, including failure to warn, negligence, and breach of express and implied warranty, and seeks revised patient warnings along with monitoring.
The pharmaceutical manufacturers named in the complaint include SmithKline Beecham Crp., A.H. Robins Co., Gate Pharmaceuticals, Richwood Pharmaceuticals, Ion Laboratories Inc., Medeva Pharmaceuticals and WyethAyerst Laboratories Co.
The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong in Oakland.
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