West Virginia's state Supreme Court granted class-action status last week to 5,000 lawsuits filed over the recalled diabetes medication Rezulin. Reversing a decision made in 2001 by Raleigh County Judge John A. Hutchison, the high court concluded that class certification should have been granted two years ago based on the merits of the claims and evidence linking Rezulin to dozens of cases of liver failure. The plaintiffs are seeking reimbursement for the costs of numerous medical monitoring studies undergone in an attempt to determine how Rezulin has injured them.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Rezulin in 1997. Later that year, Great Britain removed the drug from the market after several users were hospitalized with liver failure. The FDA, though, did not remove Rezulin from the U.S. market until March 2000 after it was linked to dozens of liver-related deaths. Since Rezulin's recall, former users have filed thousands of lawsuits against the drug's maker Warner-Lambert Co., which Pfizer Inc. bought in 2000.