Diet Drugs Litigation Reporter, "Plaintiffs File Motion for Class Certification"

          The Plaintiffs Management Committee ("PMC") has filed a motion seeking certification of a nationwide medical monitoring class against the American Home Products, the chief manufacturer and/or distributor of fenfluramine and dexfenfluramine.
          The motion was filed under seal, but according to a published report by PMC member Elizabeth J. Cabraser, of San Francisco, California, the PMC seeks to establish a class made up of all persons who used fenfluramine or dexfenfluramine before those drugs were recalled last year and who are not covered by insurance to cover the costs of medical examinations and echocardiograms as recommended by the federal government in November of 1997. Some 18 million prescriptions for fenfluramine, dexfenfluramine and/or phentermine, the "phen" half of the drug cocktail "fen-phen," were written in 1996 and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has estimated that as many as four million Americans may have taken one or more of the drugs.