Diet-Drug Lawsuit Seeks Payment For Heart Tests

Class-action suits demanding payment for heart monitoring for former diet-drug users have been filed in five states against the makers of prescription drugs pulled off the market a week ago.

The suits were filed last week in New York, Utah, Colorado and Hawaii and earlier in California on behalf of patients allegedly injured from using fen-phen, the popular name for a combination of prescription diet drugs, attorney Gary Mason said Saturday.

After studies linked the diet pills to serious heart damage, drug-makers withdrew from the market fenfluramine and dexfenfluramine, sold under the brand names Pondimin and Redux, respectively.

The Food and Drug Administration urged millions of dieters to immediately stop taking both drugs.

“Thousands of people will now need regular medical attention for which the drug-makers must be held responsible,” attorney Michael Hausfeld said in a statement Saturday.

The lawsuits seek medical monitoring, emergency notification and updated patient warnings for class members, Mason said. Some suits seek specific monetary damages for individuals.

Mason, whose law firm Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll is coordinating the class-action suits, said similar actions would be filed in all 50 states within the next few weeks.