Jonathan Campbell, Health Consultant
Natural Therapies for Chronic Illness & Health Maintenance

HealthAlert

Helping people take charge of their health

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(This page is under construction, as more information about the drug recall unfolds)

For several years, doctors all over the U.S. have been quietly recommending two diet drugs - Dexfenfluramine (Redux) and Phentermine - to millions of people. According to latest statistics, more than 18 million people have used the drugs, in a combination called fen/phen. Used in combination, they reduced the craving for food, making dieting easier. But when you disrupt sensitive chemical messaging systems in the human body, other more serious disruptions may occur.

There is now evidence that the drug combination is deadly. On May 5, 1997, the parents of a 30-year-old Quincy, Mass. woman who used the combination, and subsequently died, sued the manufacturers of the drugs.  The woman, a bride-to-be who used the combination to lose weight for her wedding day, died after taking the drugs for a mere 24 days. A study in August, 1996 reported in the New England Journal of Medicine that Fenfluramine caused "primary pulmonary hypertension," contricting of lung blood vessels, causing overtaxing of heart muscles. But the FDA did not act to stop the sale of the drug. In July, 1997, researchers at the Mayo Clinic reported finding a large percentage of   fen/phen users had developed heart valve defects. The FDA still did not act. Finally, in September, the manufacturers of Fenfluramine voluntarily withdrew the drug. Now there are possibly millions of people who have heart valve defects.