The Daily Record (Baltimore), "Despite Approval of Settlement, Diet Drug Makers Have Further Litigation"

          Despite gaining approval of the settlement of a nationwide class-action suit, the makers and distributors of the diet drug fenfluramine -- half the "fen-phen" cocktail -- have a long road of litigation ahead of them. On August 28, 2000, Judge Louis C. Bechtle of the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, approved the settlement reached with AHP in a nationwide fen-phen class action suit. A complainant may be entitled under the agreement to receive relief ranging from a $ 3,000 cash settlement to $ 10,000 in heart-valve related medical services. Alternatively, parties may elect, as the five did recently in Baltimore County, Maryland, to pursue litigation.