September 20, 1999

Proposed settlement between American Home Products and people who claim heart valve damage after taking fen-phen, the company's diet pill combination, allows people to opt out of settlement at three different points to pursue individual cases; some analysts are concerned that this leniency could expose it to a substantial number of individual fen-phen suits even after the settlement is signed; some legal experts say flexible approach could do the company more good than harm (M)

General Accounting Office report finds pattern of 'improprieties' among contractors that pay Medicare claims for Government, the very companies that are suppposed to be be policing Medicare fraud; investigation finds that contractors filed false claims, improperly destroyed thousands of claims to reduce backlog, and shut down telephone systems when inundated with customers' calls; eight companies have paid more than $275 million in fines to settle charges of defrauding Government; Department of Health and Human Services is investigating 19 others; chart shows how claims are processed (M)

Ben Ratliff reviews 14th annual DMC/Technics World DJ Championship at Hammerstein Ballroom, which features 12 turntablists; Craze successfully defends his title; photo (M)

William C Rhoden Sports of The Times column on Diana Logan, wife of New York Jets football player Ernie Logan, and her participation in Race for the Cure, 5-kilometer event sponsored by National Football League to raise money for breast cancer research; she discusses her battle with breast cancer; photo (M)

John Tierney The Big City column on McCourts: Frank, Malachy and the rest, who have turned the misery of their lives into a neverending stream of best-selling memoirs (M)