On April 27, Jenny, a 28-year-old journalism student at Kent State, was in a devasting car accident. The physical pain from the accident prevented her from exercising, and she began gaining weight. At 5-foot-6, she went from 137 pounds to 167 pounds in a year. The possibility of losing her modeling job at About Face International made her desperate to shed pounds. Looking for a quick fix, Jenny took the appetite suppressants Redux and fen/phen. Jenny and the other students interviewed asked that their last names not be used because of the nature of this story.

The pounds might have dropped for Jenny and the 20 million people in the United States who were prescribed Redux or fen/phen, but some drug users experienced serious side effects. Doctors discovered that 33 percent of patients taking Redux or fen/phen developed a leaky heart valve or primary pulmonary hypertension, an incurable lung disease. This is why fenfluramine (which makes up half of the fen/phen combination) and dexfenfluramine (sold as Redux) were pulled off the market on Sep. 15 in the United States at the request of the Food and Drug Administration.

Phentermine, the other half of the fen/phen combination, remains on the market. The FDA did not ask manufacturers to pull phentermine, says Dr. Ray Leone, a physician at the Health Center. Now, fenflourimine and dexfenfluramine aren't available anywhere in the world, Leone says. But that doesn't stop people from wanting the drugs.

Though Jenny wishes she had never used the diet pills, some users who experienced minimal or no side effects think the drugs should stay on the market.

Jenny hoped taking Redux would help her regain the figure she had before her accident. Instead, Redux made her fatigued. She switched to fen/phen, which made her feel the opposite ­ tense and uptight. "It was like a rush," Jenny says. "It was what I would imagine being on cocaine or heroin was like."

Eventually, Jenny ended up in an emergency room with an abnormal heart beat. "The doctor told me, 'Whatever you're taking, stop taking it.'"

Pam, a 26-year-old junior nursing student, is an emotional eater. She overeats whenever she is upset or excited. "I wanted to lose weight, because I didn't want to be this size (252 pounds, 5-foot-4) when I have children," Pam says.

Pam took Redux for a year and a half and lost 25 pounds, but she stopped taking the drug after her weight loss slowed. Now, Pam weighs 190 pounds. She says, "If the drugs had not stopped working for me, I would still be on them. I would recommend them to anyone."

Fearing she might someday become diabetic (the disease runs in her family), Stacy, a 21-year-old senior education major, needed to lose weight. At 6 feet, she weighed 230 pounds before going on Redux. "I've been on and off diets since 1989," she says. She first heard about Redux from her uncle who is a physician.

After taking Redux for a week, Stacy was constantly tired and hungry. "By the time I got off work, I would be really tired, and when I woke up, I would feel like I had not eaten in months. And so I would eat like I had never eaten before," she says. Instead of losing weight, Stacy gained five pounds.

Stacy says she wasn't aware of the risks associated with taking Redux, but she trusted her physician uncle's judgment. To her, Redux is still a viable option for losing weight. "If (Redux) works for other dieters, go for it," she says. "But I don't feel that people who don't have a weight problem should use it."