PHARMACEUTICALS

* In a separate development, American Home Products settled lawsuits with seven Mississippi women who said the drug maker hid the health risks of its fen-phen diet drugs. Arguments had begun Monday in state court in Fayette, Miss., in the consolidated trial of the suits alleging AHP’s Pondimin and Redux diet drugs caused the plaintiffs’ heart problems. Dieters took the drugs as part of the fen-phen combination to suppress their appetites. AHP hasn’t won a single fen-phen case that has gone to trial since the diet-drug litigation began in 1997.