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If there is one thing that Americans clamor for more than the alluring promise of weight loss - it’s the promise of fast weight loss. In today’s instant gratification is not soon enough society, faster is always better. Or is it? It seems like there are hundreds upon hundreds of weight loss and fast weight loss programs being trotted out with passing day. Everywhere we turn, weight loss programs and weight loss diets are in our face - all over the place. Television commercials, newspaper ads and radio spots extol the virtues of various weight loss programs, diet pills and the like. While everyone seems to have a different opinion as to which type of fast weight loss program is the best, the diet pills seem to have the greatest mass appeal. If you believe the hype, all you need to do to shed that spare tire is to pop a couple of the diet pills in your mouth and the inches start melting away. That summer swimsuit figure is only a couple of bottles away! Judging by the scads of lawsuits being filed on behalf of millions of chunky Americans, it now appears that corpulent Americans were popping diet pills like candy. The real side affect of all of these weight loss and fast weight loss programs were the class action lawsuits against the diet drug industry. It wasn’t really that hard a sell anyway. After all, who wouldn’t prefer to take a couple of diet pills and woof down a cheeseburger and fires for lunch than climb aboard a stationary bicycle for thirty minutes a day while eating a blasé diet of salads and tofu? Besides, what in the heck is this tofu stuff anyway? Doesn’t everyone know America is a steak and potatoes kind of place? If you give most folks the choice of working up a sweat while working out or plopping down in the recliner with a cold brewsky and a remote control, it’s generally no contest. Getting Americans to buy diet pills was an easy sell. The hardest hit of the weight loss diet pills were the popular diet drugs Pondimin and Redux, each of which is a form of fenfluramine (the “fen” component in the diet drug known as fen-phen). When Pondimin or Redux were given with phentermine (the “phen” ingredient of fen-phen), the combination was known as “fen-phen”. At first, this powerful appetite suppressant was the rave of millions of Americans who had grown tired of one unsuccessful attempt after another to lose weight. Weight loss centers, health food stores and weight loss gurus soon ballyhooed the benefits of this miracle diet pill. A little over a year after Redux was approved by the FDA, the first sign of trouble began to unveil itself. In the summer of 1997, Mayo Clinic researchers reported that 24 woman who had been taking fen-phen had developed a rare heart valve disease. Within months, dozens of similar reports had surfaced. When the FDA notified American Home Products (the maker of the drug duo) of the problem, the drugs were pulled from the marketplace. The damage had already been done. As many as six million people are believed to have obtained prescriptions for the drug combination. Enter the lawyers. Even though Redux and Pondimin were removed from drugstore shelves in 1997, lawsuits continue at an unabated pace. Newspaper ads and television commercials bought and paid for by personal injury lawyers routinely solicit “victims” nationwide. American Home Products has proposed to pay out upwards of four billion dollars to settle fen-phen related cases. Four billion dollars! That kind of treasure chest is sure to grab the attention of lawyers - and it did. Personal injury lawyers, looking to cash in at the tune of up to forty percent of the take, are working overtime to sign up as many recruits as possible. In the last several days I have read a newspaper advertisement from a New York City legal firm recruiting fen-phen victims, viewed a number of billboards on the highway urging fen-phen victims to call an injury hot-line number and have seen countless legal infomercials on TV asking “Are you a fen-phen victim? You may be due compensation.” These personal injury lawyers, who have finely honed their craft and gained invaluable big league experience while cashing in on the fen-phen fiasco, are now looking for other cash cows to bludgeon. They didn’t have to look far. Meridia, a popular diet drug manufactured by Abbott Laboratories, is now under the gun by lawyers. Cardiovascular disorders resulting from taking Meridia have been cited by the lawyers bringing the lawsuits. Abbott has disputed the validity of the statistics kept by the FDA and claim that the patient deaths cited by the lawyers have not been proved to be caused by taking Meridia. Is this going to stop the lawyers? Fat chance. Also under fire is the drug phenylpropanolamine, which thankfully goes by the simple abbreviation of PPA. PPA was a fairly universal ingredient in over the counter cold remedies and diet pills found in just about everyone’s medicine cabinet. PPA and its purported health risks alone would not entice lawyers to jump on the PPA lawsuit bandwagon. It’s the companies whose products that contained PPA that’s got the lawyers hunting for bear. Bayer Corporation, Bristol-Meyers squib, American Home Products (again!) and the like read like a virtual Who’s Who of deep pocket defendants. Some of the products that contained PPA include Alka-Seltzer, Contac, Robitussin, Dexatrim … the list goes on and on. Ephedra, a related compound found in many herbal remedies, is also being taken to task. Personal injury lawyers are giddy at the prospects of racking in billions of dollars in additional fees. Lawyers estimate that hundreds of strokes may have occurred annually as a result of people taking PPA. Do they have any proof as of yet? No. Does that matter? Again, no. Let the shakedown begin. A template for filing diet drug related lawsuits has now emerged. The lawyers get the ball rolling by finding a legitimate (or semi-legitimate, if necessary) victim or two and then filing a lawsuit in their behalf. Then they proceed to get the public all worked up into a lather by releasing adverse information about the product and its adverse affects on its consumers, with little concern over the accuracy of the assertions being made. If they can create enough adverse publicity to coerce a settlement from the manufacturer or hoodwink a jury into awarding a King’s ransom of a verdict, it’s Katie bar the door from that point on. Then all they need to do is solicit victims by the thousands, if not millions, through radio, newspapers and television and of course take forty percent of the action. Have the weight loss programs, rapid weight loss diets and various diet pills and other drugs created a number of side effects in America? You better believe they have - thousands upon thousands of lawsuits, that is.
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