The trial was the nation's first involving a patient who died after taking the product. In July 1997, after she stopped taking the pills, she weighed 198 pounds. Doctors diagnosed her with primary pulmonary hypertension, or PPH, in April 1998. PPH forces the heart to work harder to pump blood to the lungs. The disease renders victims unable to complete any strenuous activity.
Sufferers sometimes require lung transplants for survival.
Mrs. Burks, once an active church volunteer, now lives in an assisted-living center in Tyler and is receiving medication intravenously through a chest catheter. Her case had been set for trial in October in state District Judge John M. Marshall's courtroom. Therefore, I am not surprised that the case is not going to trial. Drug industry analysts said American Home Products wants to settle the cases involving patients with PPH because the condition is so rare. The drugmaker has appealed the decision and succeeded in moving the case to Dallas.