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Katherine Flegal's avatar

I was a member of the FDA advisory committee that voted against approving lorcaserin (Belviq) in the first round. These meetings are public and there were quite a few people there who were investors of some kind in the drug (not from the company, just individuals who somehow had some kind of investment, like buying stock) and were angered by the vote against approval.. Just after the meeting ended, one of them came up and threatened a committee member! I think the FDA had to get security for the next meeting.

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Carol Gwenn's avatar

Oh, the evil that some companies do!

In 1997 I was working with a guy who started on Fen-Phen, just before the drug was pulled. I recall

that his regular doc refused to prescribe it & he found another who would. Unfortunately, after a

few months, maybe 3 or so, he developed some serious problems -- after all these years, the poor guy

still has the heart problems caused by Fen-Phen, and he weighs just about what he did to begin with.

So - a real screw up: he's nowhere near as healthy as he was at the start, and he never lost any of

the weight that he wanted to be rid of. If only there had been more material like your research,

Ragen, facts that could enable people to make really informed decisions. Will we ever know how many

people were permanently damaged by ALL the diet drugs?

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