Bergen Lawyer Suing Maker of Diet Pills

by Michael Markowitz
The Record

A Franklin Lakes man said he will file a lawsuit today seeking damages from American Home Products Corp., the Madison based pharmaceutical giant that markets two diet drugs recalled last week because of links to heart valve abnormalities.

The suit, to be filed as a class action in Superior Court in Bergen County, is the latest in a flood of litigation filed against AHP since Sept. 15, when the company took the weight-loss drugs Redux and Pondimin off the market at the urging of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

On Tuesday, a class-action suit was filed in federal court in New ark naming AHP and nine other companies connected to the manufacture and sale of the drugs, which were often taken with other pills in a combination known as "fen-phen."

Lawyers in Illinois and Georgia also filed class-action lawsuits Tuesday against American Home Products and others.

Federal officials asked the company to withdraw the drugs after doctors reported heart-valve abnormalities in 30 percent of patients using the pills in various combinations.

AHP stock, battered by news of the recall and the tide of lawsuits, fell Tuesday, closing down about $1.09 at $70.50. It traded as low as $69.75 during the day.

As recently as Sept. 12, the stock stood at nearly $77, but the subsequent news knocked $60 billion off the company's valuation in the next three trading days.

AHP shares had reached a high of $84.875 on July 24.

In the suit to be filed today in Bergen County, Santo Bonanno, a lawyer who took the diet drugs for approximately two months, says AHP failed to warn consumers about potential problems with the drugs.

The company, the suit says provided "false, incomplete and/or misleading information regarding its products."

Bonanno is seeking damages for injuries that may result from using the drugs. His attorney, Joseph R. Santoli of Ridgewood, also said AHP should pay for medical visits and tests for users of the drugs and reimburse patients for unused pills.

"There are possibly tens of thousands of people that are stuck with $200 worth of drugs that they are not going to get reimbursed for," Santoli said.

Santoli said his client started taking the drugs after visiting a doctor to discuss a "slight weight problem." He said Bonanno has yet to have tests to determine whether he suffered any damage from the drugs.

AHP would not discuss the litigation.

"The company has been named in a number of lawsuits involving Pondimin and Redux. As a matter of policy we cannot comment on pending litigation," said Doug Petkua, a spokesman for Wyeth-Ayerst, a division of AHP, based in Radnor, Pa.

"However, we have defended and will continue to defend any such lawsuit. We believe the company has acted responsibly in the marketing of these products according to FDA guidelines."

Santoli said that because of the large volume of lawsuits, he expects that the courts will eventually combine them into one or more larger claims.

In addition to the suits filed by lawyers representing users of the drugs, a suit was filed in federal court in Newark last week on behalf of the shareholders of AHP.

That action alleges that the company withheld from the public information about problems with the diet drugs while insiders sold millions of dollars worth of shares.