Fen-phen PPH: "I Was Scared to Death"

Lawrenceburg, KYW.L. Carter is one of the lucky ones. When he started taking Fen-phen in 1994, he took only half the recommended dose, given that the diet drug cocktail was expensive and his health insurance provider wouldn't pay for it. In hindsight, that strategy may have saved his life although, like thousands of others, he wound up with PPH (Primary Pulmonary Hypertension).

He shouldn't have. The Kentucky man was fit, trim and active, a habit he had always maintained. Weight was never an issue. However, when his wife became seriously ill in 1994 the couple suddenly became "homebodies, and my weight shot up to about 270 (pounds) almost overnight," he says. Meantime, Fen-phen was being actively promoted at diet clinics that were popping up all over Kentucky in the 1990s, so Carter—then in his mid-40's—went on a half dosage of what he now calls the 'fantasy drug.'

The results were fantastic. The Lawrenceburg resident rapidly dropped about 65 pounds, and felt like a new man--but not for long. Adverse reaction reports with regard to Fen-phen began to swirl in the news, culminating in the removal of the controversial diet drug from the marketplace by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1997. Carter says he felt fine at the time, but the news reports he heard left him worried, so he went to get checked out.

He was appalled to learn that he had sustained life-threatening heart valve damage consistent with PPH—and also in line with what other users of Fen-phen had been suffering. Not surprisingly, the diagnosis left him scared to death. A relatively young man, and a fellow having done all the right things in pursuit of a healthy lifestyle prior to starting on his Fen-phen regimen, he was quite understandably concerned for his family. His wife had not yet returned to work following her illness, and their two children were still at home. He couldn't afford to become sick or disabled from a heart condition at his age.

Luckily, Carter's story has a happy ending. Ten years on he still has no outward sign of heart damage. But he's being careful. He gets regular checkups, watches his diet and gets regular exercise, walking miles of terrain each day in an effort to stay active and stave off any possibility of heart trouble. He knows, however, that at 54 he's a ticking time bomb. The damage was done—all he's trying to do is postpone the inevitable.

Symptoms could appear at any time. It should be noted that PPH is known for delayed onset by up to ten years. In other words, users of the then-hugely popular diet drug cocktail just prior to Fen-phen's removal in 1997 may have sailed through the last ten years with no outward signs of trouble until now, 11 years after the drug was banned. Carter was both lucky and proactive, sensing a danger and getting checked without waiting for symptoms to appear.

Many aren't so lucky or forward thinking as Carter. While the first class action case against American Home Products, the manufacturer of Fen-phen was organized shortly after the diet drug was pulled from the market (an action which Carter joined, along with about 400 others), there are more lawsuits currently being heard or planned as the ten-year window passes, and more people who may have taken the popular diet drug a decade ago are only now experiencing symptoms of heart damage which may have occurred years ago. Even individuals with no history of heart issues have been affected, with no obvious symptoms until now.

Had they been alerted, or suspected a problem and gotten checked out ten years ago like W.L. Carter did, healthier lifestyle habits could have been adopted. Instead, many former users of Fen-phen have been going through life without those safeguards all this time, not knowing that they could have PPH and not know it. Whereas they could have mitigated the situation had they known, they are now left to deal with the cold and cruel reality that a drug promoted, and viewed as perfectly harmless a decade ago, was anything but.

The situation has left well-meaning dieters confused and angry—and calling their lawyers.