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Plaintiffs who decided to opt out of a class action lawsuit have been offered a comprehensive settlement offer from Wyeth for fen phen side effects.
Half of the diet drug combination fen phen, Redux and Pondimin were withdrawn in 1997 after disclosures they caused serious heart valve and lung damage in some patients. At the time of the fen phen recall, an estimated six million people had taken the drugs.
A Wyeth spokesman said the company was unaware of how many of the 63,000 plaintiffs who had received the fen phen settlement offer would sign on, but several firms representing thousands of claimants said they would not sign on.
Wyeth offered settlements of $5,000 to $200,000 to the plaintiffs, with those most seriously injured able to negotiate higher payments. The company announced last month that it was increasing the amount set aside for the lawsuits by $4.5 billion, to a total of $21.1 billion. This was at least the fourth time Wyeth had been forced to increase fen phen litigation reserves.
The company has also announced it is appealing a $1 billion fen phen award in Texas from last May on behalf of a patient with lung damage.