Auditors reviewing the medical records of people slated to receive a share of a $3.75 billion trust fund for people who took the fen-phen diet drug have found "a huge number" that may not have suffered heart-valve damage as claimed, and shouldn't be paid, according to an attorney for the trust.
More than 100,000 people have filed the paperwork and presumably telltale echocardiograms that would entitle them to a portion of the settlement fund, set up by Wyeth Inc. to resolve claims related to the recalled fen-phen drugs Pondimin and Redux.
But payments to hundreds have been tossed out since last fall, when a federal judge, bothered by sample audits that found a high percentage of unjustified claims, ordered a total review.
"A huge number were problematic," said Richard L. Scheff, an attorney for the Philadelphia-based trust handling the distribution of the settlement. "There is an enormous task to be done to separate the wheat from the chaff."
U.S. District Judge Harvey J. Bartle III, who is overseeing the settlement, barred two New York law firms from collecting shares of the settlement after ruling that they had submitted unjustified claims.
The trust sued a Kansas City doctor who had been assisting with the filing of claims, saying she diagnosed thousands of people as being ill without properly evaluating their health.
The AP has the whole sordid tale here via Findlaw.com.