PPH: When Losing Weight Can Kill

Washington, DCIf you found yourself in the middle of any February prior to 1997 and packing a few extra pounds, you might have been one of the millions of Americans turning to Fen Phen, the magic diet pill that was all the rage until it was revealed that Fen Phen was a suspected link to PPH, an often fatal lung disease. Today, you may be turning to a PPH Class Action lawsuit.

You would have been forgiven for embracing Fen Phen, especially given its exalted status at the time. Fen Phen was actually the combination of fenfluramine (Pondimin) and phentermine, and was hailed as an answer to anyone with any kind of weight problem, no matter how severe.

And in the middle of February, in any given year, weight loss for millions of Americans is top-of-mind. First, February follows January, which follows the excesses of the Thanksgiving and Christmas season. If you had a weight problem going in, that problem is exacerbated after so many helpings of turkey and plumb pudding.

Add to that the guilt over a New Years resolution gone sour, and the approaching bathing suit season, and you can see the impetus behind the wild search, and the instant adoption of anything that would take the weight off.

The times also saw the unprecedented growth of fast food chains, and this was long before anyone had ever heard of the term 'trans fat.'

Thus you turn to appetite suppressants like Fen Phen, which an estimated six to seven million consumers worldwide did, before their world turned upside down in the mid-1990s.

That's when news began to surface that clinical studies had determined that many of these drugs, and the Fen Phen combo in particular, significantly increased a patient's risk of developing severe cardiovascular problems.

In a clinical study conducted by the famed Mayo Clinic, 24 cases of Primary Pulmonary Hypertension (PPH) were identified. Of all the participants in the study, researchers estimated at the time that a full 30 per cent of PPH study patients had been on Fen Phen previously.

After publication of the study, 75 more reports of PPH found their way to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA's response was to pull Fen Phen off the market, along with Redux (dexfenfluramine), and Pondimin (fenfluramine). All three were recalled in 1997 after they were found to be unsafe.

That left millions of dieters, having ingested the now-considered unsafe drug for years, feeling violated. Not only were the drugs by which they had depended upon to resolve their weight issues no longer available to them, but also the potential development of PPH could be years in the making. Upwards of ten years can go by before many patients show any outward signs of the disease.

Little wonder that living with such a ticking time bomb, together with the allegation that American Home Products, the manufacturer of the Fen Phen drug cocktail at the time, was reportedly found to have miscoded PPH reports and failed to maintain adequate clinical monitoring during the period over which the drug was available to consumers, drove many to seek legal recourse.

Following the recall, Fen Phen class action litigation contributed to the development of a settlement fund established by American Home Products to compensate the innocent and hapless victims of a drug once considered safe. However, it was revealed in 2003 that only about a third of the 37,000 serious Fen Phen claims had been addressed by the fund.

Meantime, people continue to get sick, and new cases are emerging. The 10-year incubation period that would have affected patients still taking Fen Phen before it was banned in 1997 has just passed.

Primary Pulmonary Hypertension (PPH) -- now known as PAH (Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension) -- is a rare and potentially life threatening lung disorder in which the blood pressure in the pulmonary artery of the heart rises far above normal levels for no apparent reason. This serious type of hypertension or high blood pressure is recognized when the average blood pressure is greater than 25 mm Hg at rest.

According to the American Heart Association, an estimated 500 to 1,000 new cases of PPH are diagnosed in the U.S. each year; most of these cases are women between ages 20 and 40.

While diagnosis of PPH is getting easier and more reliable, and treatment options are increasing, it remains a frustration for many -- especially when seemingly healthy individuals suddenly start showing signs of PPH.

And while doctors and the health care industry still haven't identified a definitive cause for PPH, one of the likely suspects is the appetite suppressant. Links have been shown to that affect.

In the end, your life could be in danger, and your future compromised--all for the wont of dropping a few pounds.