The Fen-Phen Trust
Over three years, Trust has only paid 3,000 of 100,000 victims. The $3.75 billion trust set up to compensate Fen-Phen victims has more claims than money to pay them, and only a small fraction of these victims have received the help they were promised. Over a period of ten years, six million Americans took Fen-Phen, a drug Wyeth knowingly marketed and sold despite resounding evidence that it could cause serious - even fatal - heart and lung damage. When Wyeth knew they were caught, they asked for a class action settlement so they could control the number of lawsuits and limit the amount they would be required to pay victims. Victims were promised efficient processing of their claims in exchange for giving up their right to sue Wyeth for Fen-Phen damages. Wyeth grossly underestimated the number of Fen-Phen victims in an attempt to limit the amount of damages they would have to pay to the Fen-Phen Victim Trust. Now that the number of victims is higher than Wyeth hoped for, they are actively trying to delay compensating their victims.

Here are the facts about Wyeth and the Fen-Phen Trust:
• Of the 100,000 victim cases filed with the Trust, less than 3,000 victims have received damages they were promised by Wyeth.

• Wyeth is stalling and denying victims because they have more victims than expected; if every victim received the help they were promised, the Trust would go bankrupt before half of the victims were helped.

• To avoid paying victims, Wyeth is even using Trust funds set aside for victims to sue cardiologists to further slow the payment of damages to victims.

• While Wyeth delays and denies tens of thousands of its victims, the Trust bureaucracy is feeding at the trough – money managers, administrators and lawyers are making millions – from a trust fund designed to compensate victims.

Nothing should be more important than public health and safe prescription drugs. Not corporate profits. And not higher stock prices. Wyeth is accountable to all of its victims, not just the ones it chooses to repay. If Wyeth will not pay victims of Fen-Phen in a timely manner, then the victims’ rights to hold Wyeth accountable in court should be restored.