Over Three Years, Trust Has Only Paid 3,000 of the Nearly 100,000 Victims
The $3.75 billion trust set up to compensate Fen-Phen victims is bust, 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.
New information reveals the extent to which Wyeth and others involved in negotiating the Settlement Agreement manipulated the projected numbers of victims in an attempt to limit the amount 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 nearly 100,000 cases filed with the Trust, less than
3,000 victims have received the compensation 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 ten percent of the victims are
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 -- all paid 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.
04/20/04
