A weight loss pill pulled from the shelves by the FDA due to an increased risk of cancer.
Now, other side effects are coming to light as patients are filing more complaints. We're
joined by Madeline Pendley associate attorney here at Levin Papantonio, to talk about this
case. Maddy, we've seen so many cases with weight loss. We saw Fen-Phen thousands of
people, literally thousands, became ill. Hundreds of them died.
Right. And now the FDA let this thing go through
and all this thing is just another way to tell women, hey, lose weight, take this pill
and everything's going to be okay. Give me your take on it.
So Belviq like you mentioned, it operates almost exactly the same way as Fen-Phen, it's
a serotonin 2C receptor blocker, means it tells the brain we're not hungry anymore.
You can eat less, feel fuller faster and stuff like that. The problem is this drug has reported
an increased risk of cancer development, as well as other side effects like mood altering
issues like depression and mood swings, dizziness, fatigue and so on.
Right. Well, you know, what's interesting about this. They, they did a study on this,
right? Yeah.
They weren't looking for cancer. No.
They were trying to say there was a complaint that, you know, people were dying from heart
problems. Right.
And they're saying, trying to say, well, this, this doesn't cause heart problems. So they
did this study for the, FDA demanded it, finally did their job and they find out, well, no,
it doesn't cause heart problems, but it'll kill you with cancer. What kind of cancers?
Typically it's lung, pancreatic and colorectal cancers and what's so interesting and you
touched on it. These companies initially submitted their drug to the FDA in 2009 and the FDA
blocked it. Like, nope, no way. You guys don't have a good handle on the side effects that
come with this drug. The companies resubmitted it in 2012 and FDA hesitantly was like, okay,
you can give it to a limited group of people, but you have to do long-term studies on this
to figure out the side effects and these companies did. But in the meantime, this company was
actually blocked in Europe in 2013, specifically for increased risk of tumor development in
the animal studies. So this, these both companies Arena and Eisai had this information about
the tumors in animals in 2013, didn't tell the FDA and did not disclose it to the public.
Interesting, the FDA has access to what's going on around the world.
Of course. Okay. It's not like we're a bunch of, well,
maybe we are a bunch of bumpkins. The FDA certainly looks like bumpkins.
Appears to be, yeah. Most of the time. But it's not like, if you
do a study in Europe, the, the agency over there said, yeah, we looked at this, there's
tumor growth. There's cancer. 100%.
Comes off the market over there. These idiots with the FDA say, oh, we don't have enough
information. Right.
People are taking this stuff like candy to lose weight, just like they did Fen-Phen with
all these women died unnecessarily, right? Right. And like you said, the FDA one, can
communicate with, with Europe, they're allowed to do that. They'll get that information.
But it also raises the question. Why could Europe's basically FDA figure this out and
ours couldn't'? They have the same information, the same disclosure from the companies and
our company raises their hand and can't figure it out.
Here's the difference. FDA, you can't give a politician money.
Right. In the United States, we can give a politician,
F, the, the, the difference over there is if, if we have a situation where we have some,
where we have somebody working for the agency, the company that’s the private company,
can't hire that person. Here, it's like a revolving door. Sure work with the FDA awhile
and then come and work with us, right? Isn't that a big problem?
Right. So the FDA completely missed the warning signs on this drug and allowed it to remain
on the market for eight years while people took it the entire time.
Okay. So who's, the people that are filing claims, who, what kind of claims are we seeing?
Mostly cancer. At this point, we're not seeing cases for the other injuries, like shortness
of breath, fatigue and things like that. And actually in April, the plaintiff attorneys
that represent these patients filed for an MDL or a multi-district litigation, which
means they're asking for the cases to be consolidated in front of one judge and arguments were heard
on that issue last week. What type of thing should be people, I mean,
what kind of cancer should people be aware of? First of all, it's a cancer that has to
specifically begin at a particular site, not a metastasis, but as a site cancer. What are
they? Colon, lung and pancreatic. We've also seen
some breast cancer cases being filed and no rulings on those yet, but we think colon,
pancreatic and lung are the strongest. We know this, we know that the serotonin story's
been told again and again. Right.
We know that anytime you mess with, you're messing with serotonin, you have a whole,
a whole host of psychological issues related to it. But here, this is the first time I've
seen a cancer, I've seen a cancer induced kind of pharmaceutical that is for weight,
for weight loss. Isn't this kind of a new thing?
It is unusual. And like you mentioned, they were initially looking for heart valve issues
because that's what we saw in Fen-Phen and another drug called Redux, I believe. But
the cancer issue is specific to this drug. Belviq, no surprise. It just goes on and on,
doesn't it? Right.