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4/27/2004 7:34:00 PM
BEAUMONT, Texas, Apr 27, 2004 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- The following was released today by Majority Counsel:
A Beaumont, Texas jury today returned a more than $1 billion verdict against Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories in a landmark Fen-Phen trial. Experts predict that this outcome against drug-maker Wyeth will set the standard by which the company will be judged in the tens of thousands of Fen-Phen cases currently in the court system awaiting trial dates.
Beaumont, Texas resident Cynthia Cappel-Coffey, took the diet drug combination Fen-Phen to lose weight for an eight-month period between November 1996 and July 1997. The FDA ordered the drug off the market that same year. In 2003 Coffey died from Primary Pulmonary Hypertension (PPH), a deadly heart and lung disease rarely seen outside of Fen-Phen use. Leaving behind a husband and three young daughters, her family sued the drug behemoth Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories for marketing and selling a drug the company knew was harmful.
New evidence in this case, including a high-level Wyeth memo detailing the company's plan to ignore FDA warnings about the dangers of these drugs, especially if used longer than 90 days, convinced the jury of Wyeth's illegal activities.
"When given the facts in this case, this jury showed pure outrage. No amount of money will ever bring Mrs. Coffey back to her family, but this verdict sends a message that it is unconscionable to put corporate profits over the health of the American public," said Ed Blizzard, a Houston attorney with Blizzard, McCarthy & Nabers and a Fen-Phen legal expert with Majority Counsel.
"Wyeth should expect to see this verdict again and again, all across the country."
Prominent Houston attorney George Fleming of Fleming and Associates reiterates this thought, "My office has over 100 cases similar to this one, and we anticipate that many of these will be filed by the end of this year."
This case comes on the heels of the heated national debate over the 100,000 cases currently awaiting compensation in the Fen-Phen Settlement Trust. In the three years since the Trust was formed, it has paid only 3% of these claims, and is expected to go bankrupt before compensating even ten percent of its victims.
The past round of Fen-Phen cases have revolved around another deadly side effect of the drug called Mitral Valve Regurgitation. In this round of cases, Wyeth settled every single claim.
Majority Counsel is a group of over 30 law firms and 100 attorneys representing the rights of victims who have been damaged by Fen-Phen. For more information about Majority Counsel, please visit: www.majoritycounsel.com.
SOURCE Majority Counsel
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