Dilantin Drug

More than 200 pregnant women may have unknowingly taken a drug as part of a study conducted by two Cook County Hospital physicians, said Terrence Hansen, director of the Chicago hospital. The study was to determine if Dilantin, a common drug used to treat epilepsy and stroke patients, could reduce fetal stress in Caesarean section births. About 245 pregnant women were given the drug by two anesthesiologists between late September, 1987, and Jan.

The Food and Drug Administration is trying to reassure epilepsy patients that a popular drug investigated for quality fluctuations is safe to use--because the concerns are more legal than medical. "We have no evidence . . . that the Dilantin available today is not performing as expected in patients," the FDA said in response to dozens of phone calls from epilepsy patients worried after Dilantin's maker, Warner Lambert Inc., pleaded guilty to a felony for hiding quality problems with the drug.

The Food and Drug Administration is trying to reassure epilepsy patients that a popular drug investigated for quality fluctuations is safe to use--because the concerns are more legal than medical. "We have no evidence . . . that the Dilantin available today is not performing as expected in patients," the FDA said in response to dozens of phone calls from epilepsy patients worried after Dilantin's maker, Warner Lambert Inc., pleaded guilty to a felony for hiding quality problems with the drug.

A former drug company executive was indicted Tuesday and the company agreed to pay $10 million in fines after admitting that it fraudulently withheld information from the Food and Drug Administration about persistent problems with a widely used anti-epilepsy drug. New Jersey-based Warner-Lambert Co. admitted in its guilty plea that it committed a felony by failing to report problems with Dilantin, the epilepsy medication, in the early 1990s.

A former drug company executive was indicted Tuesday and the company agreed to pay $10 million in fines after admitting that it fraudulently withheld information from the Food and Drug Administration about persistent problems with a widely used anti-epilepsy drug. New Jersey-based Warner-Lambert Co. admitted in its guilty plea that it committed a felony by failing to report problems with Dilantin, the epilepsy medication, in the early 1990s.

AT 2 O'CLOCK ON A SUMMER MORNING, THE Smart Lounge pulsed like a human brain. Flashes of light strobed through the cavelike cellar, and computer-generated music throbbed from enormous speakers. Mobiles and Day-Glo planets hung from the ceiling, dancing in the air currents like elusive thoughts.

Third artificial heart recipient Murray P. Haydon, giving the thumbs-up sign to his doctors and family on Monday, "looked fantastic" a day after surgery and his condition was "so good that it's frightening," one of his doctors said. But on the same floor, William J. Schroeder, while looking somewhat better Monday, has been "weak, tired and discouraged" from a mysterious fever that has raised doubts that he will ever permanently leave the hospital.

AT 2 O'CLOCK ON A SUMMER MORNING, THE Smart Lounge pulsed like a human brain. Flashes of light strobed through the cavelike cellar, and computer-generated music throbbed from enormous speakers. Mobiles and Day-Glo planets hung from the ceiling, dancing in the air currents like elusive thoughts.

More than 200 pregnant women may have unknowingly taken a drug as part of a study conducted by two Cook County Hospital physicians, said Terrence Hansen, director of the Chicago hospital. The study was to determine if Dilantin, a common drug used to treat epilepsy and stroke patients, could reduce fetal stress in Caesarean section births. About 245 pregnant women were given the drug by two anesthesiologists between late September, 1987, and Jan.