Unlike conventional class actions, the plaintiffs in the fen-phen diet drug suit that went to trial last Wednesday in Middlesex County haven't suffered illness or injury. In fact, their class is specifically defined to exclude people who've suffered illness or injury.
Early intervention is important.
If people can get treatment, people can get help. No one would argue with the premise. The question is whether someone with no discernible injury from a product has a cause of action, based solely on the possibility that an injury may become manifest in the future. The suit, Vadino v. American Home Products seeks echocardiographic testing of the 94,400 New Jersey residents who took the diet drugs for more than three weeks before they were taken off the market in September 1997. Worse for the manufacturers, it puts them on the hook for both the monitoring costs and any injuries that the monitoring discloses.