Times-News (Twin Falls, Idaho), "Slender at a price... Diet Drugs Users Seek Compensation for Heart Damage"

          On July 8, 1997, the Food and Drug Administration issued a public health advisory that revealed some unnerving findings at the Mayo Clinic. Twenty-four of the clinic's patients had developed heart valve disease after taking Fen-Phen. Five of them ended up in open-heart surgery, and eight more ended up developing pulmonary hypertension, a sometimes fatal disease of the heart and lungs.
          That was just the beginning. Today, more than 100,000 former Fen-Phen users have added their names to a class-action suit against Wyeth, the Delaware-based multibillion-dollar pharmaceutical company formerly known as American Home Products Corp. that made and marketed the diet drugs. They allege the pharmaceutical company failed to properly warn physicians and consumers concerning the dangers of the drugs.
          The Mayo findings were reported in the August 1997 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, along with an FDA letter to the editor describing additional cases. The FDA began receiving more reports of heart valve disease associated mainly with Fen-Phen.