"During the early 1990s, the diet drugs Phen-fen and Redux achieved tremendous popularity. The chemical combination was discovered by chance, marketed with hyperbole, and prescribed in the millions. But as the drugs' developer, pharmaceutical giant American Home Products, raced to cash in on the miracle weight-loss pills, their bubble burst when medical researchers revealed that the drugs caused heart valve disease. This scandal was, incredibly, only the beginning of an unbelievable tale of greed and graft. In Fat Chance, ...
Read More
"During the early 1990s, the diet drugs Phen-fen and Redux achieved tremendous popularity. The chemical combination was discovered by chance, marketed with hyperbole, and prescribed in the millions. But as the drugs' developer, pharmaceutical giant American Home Products, raced to cash in on the miracle weight-loss pills, their bubble burst when medical researchers revealed that the drugs caused heart valve disease. This scandal was, incredibly, only the beginning of an unbelievable tale of greed and graft. In Fat Chance, Rick Christman relates the true story of these diet drugs and the legal actions that followed-an account that has many eerie similarities to issues and experiences surrounding the opioid epidemic. From pharmaceutical companies cutting corners to boost their bottom line to avaricious lawyers on the lookout for a payday, Christman details events that one of the members of a judicial tribunal on the affair described as "a tale worthy of the pen of Charles Dickens." Shortly after the dangers of Phen-fen and Redux became known, a rash of lawsuits throughout the United States threated to ruin American Home Products, and four attorneys saw this as an irresistible opportunity. Bill Gallion, Shirley Cunningham, Melbourne Mills, and Stan Chesley contrived to a bring a class action suit to trial in Covington, Kentucky, where their hired "trial consultant," Mark Modlin, had a manipulative relationship with the presiding judge, Jay Bamberger. On May 1, 2001, American Home Products agreed to a negotiated settlement of $200 million-a monumental sum that the four lawyers and judge immediately set out to plunder and misappropriate in ways that would later leave Chesley disbarred and Bamberger disrobed and disbarred. Fat Chance is a story rife with villains, but nearly devoid of heroes. The company that made the drugs and the physicians who distributed them were careless. The echocardiogram mills and tort attorneys that sought to capitalize on the assumed health dangers of the drugs were greedy. Significant numbers of the so-called victims were also out to game the system. Here, Christman offers an engaging if occasionally horrifying account of a dramatic affair that ended in one of the largest thefts in American history"--
Read Less
