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Monday, January 26, 2004
sjiPolice find bodies at presumed
fi|drug house in Ciudad Juarez
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NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico
|AP) —A shootout before dawn
iunday in this border city left
Ihree people dead, the latest vic-
lims of a string of apparently
irug-related killings in Mexico.
I State police commander
klberto del Angel Hernandez
laid officials were interviewing
Witnesses and the victims’ fami
ly members to determine who
was behind the shootout.
I Nuevo Laredo has been the
lite of several recent drug turf
battles. Federal officials have
laid deserters from an elite
Mexican amiy unit who formed
drug gang have been fighting
NEWS IN BRIEF
^Vowell holds out
possibility that
Iraq had no
banned weapons
TBLISl, Georgia (AP) —
Secretary of State Colin Powell
leld out the possibility
Saturday that prewar Iraq may
lot have possessed weapons
)f mass destruction.
Powell was asked about com-
nents last week by David Kay,
he outgoing leader of a U.S.
weapons search team in Iraq,
hat he did not believe Iraq had
arge quantities of chemical or
biological weapons.
Powell acknowledged that
he United States thought
deposed leader Saddam
Hussein had banned weapons
ftut added. "We had questions
fpoglhat needed to be answered.
Almost a year has passed
pee Powell’s speech before the
.N. Security Council in which
e accused Iraq of violating a
N. weapons ban imposed after
raq invaded Kuwait more than a
ecade ago.
latepIInsurgents strike
3 ho4 three times in
unni Triangle
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — Iraqi
nsurgents struck Saturday in
he volatile Sunni Triangle west
pf Baghdad, killing five U.S.
soldiers in separate bombings
and narrowly missing an
American convoy with a blast
hat killed four Iraqis and
wounded about 40 others
north of the capital.
for control of the border town.
In other drug-related vio
lence, federal officials found the
bodies of three men Saturday
who had been killed and buried
in the backyard of a home in the
border city of Ciudad Juarez,
across from El Paso, Texas.
In a statement released late
Saturday, the federal Attorney
General’s office said it believes
the home belonged to a member
of the Juarez cartel, led by
Vicente Carrillo Puentes.
The bodies were discovered
buried under a tent set up in the
backyard of the home, and at
least one of the victims appeared
to have been tortured, the state
ment said.
Police said they also discov
ered a marijuana press, blood
and handcuffs at the house.
On Friday, a shootout between
local police and several presumed
drug traffickers in the northern
city of Anahuac, 50 miles south
west of Nuevo Laredo, left two
state police officers and another
person dead.
On Thursday, former Deputy
State Attorney General Rogelio
Delgado was shot to death in
Tijuana along with his two
bodyguards and a friend.
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Drug trust targeted
with bogus claims
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A $3.75 billion settlement fund creat
ed for people who took the banned diet drug combination fen-phen
is receiving thousands of fraudulent heart-damage claims, lawyers
argued in a federal court filing.
The Philadelphia-based AHP Settlement Trust has received
71,000 claims, more than eight times the number expected when the
fund was formed in 1999. The trust has so far paid about 2,700
claims at an average of $400,000.
The trust was created for people who used the weight-loss drug
combination commonly known as fen-phen.
Madison, N.J.-based Wyeth,
formerly known as American
Home Products, made Pondimin,
the fenfluramine half of fen-phen,
and a chemical cousin. Redux.
Both drugs were pulled from the
market in September 1997, after
reports that in some patients they
had caused heart-valve damage
and dangerously high pressure in
lung blood vessels.
No problems were linked to
phentermine, the other drug in
the combination.
Wyeth agreed to a nationwide
class-action settlement in 1999.
The claims process has been “hijacked by lawyers stamping out
tens of thousands of baseless claims,’’ Peter L. Zimroth, an attorney
for the New Jersey-based Wyeth, said in a court filing late last year.
After the 1999 settlement, Zimroth argues, lawyers paid cardiol
ogists millions of dollars to fill out claims fonns with exaggerated
injuries after conducting echocardiogram tests.
“The trust has to ensure, as part of its fiduciary obligations, that
it is paying legitimate claims,’’ said Richard L. Scheff, a lawyer for
the trust. “We want to deter bogus claims. We want to recover
money that shouldn’t have been paid in the first place. We want
claims that aren’t valid to be withdrawn.”
Scheff has asked U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle to suspend an
estimated 7,000 claims from Dallas lawyer Kip A. Petroff, and last
year sought to suspend all claims connected to EchoMotion, a North
Carolina medical testing firm. He said the firm’s tests were not
supervised by cardiologists.
We want to
recover money that
shouldn't have
been paid in the
first place.
— Richard L. Scheff
AHP Settlement Trust lawyer
A
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6
1600 Texas Ave. S
College Station
wrs
3505G Longmire Dr.
College Station
1219 N. Texas Ave., Bryan
beau'
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CM
beau-
Come help us celebrate
our 3 I st anniversary on
January 26, 2004
Offers good only Monday, Jan. 26, 2004
We will offer a “special selection”
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4 ■ W* 1202., 20 pk.
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CALL FOR PAPERS
O
Texas A&M University
Undergraduate
Journal of Science
All undergrads doing research are eligible to
submit their work for possible publication.
DEADLINE: February 2, 2004
Rm. 230 Reed-McDonald or email to
uis@stuorg.tamu.edu
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OPAS
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