Vioxx Heart Attack Risk & Personal Injury Lawyers - Press Articles

Daily Journal, "Merck Feared $437 Million In Lost Sales; Testimony Targets Firm's Knowledge of Vioxx's Risks"

          Merck & Co. anticipated it could lose nearly a fifth of a projected $2.5 billion in Vioxx sales if its marketing campaign failed to neutralize consumer concerns about cardiovascular risk associated with its once-popular painkiller, a marketing expert testified. More...

July 6, 2006

Associated Press, "Vioxx 'a Hazard,' Doctor Testifies"

          Patients who took the painkiller Vioxx were at risk of heart attacks and strokes -- something shown by studies conducted years before the product went on the market, a doctor testified Wednesday. More...
          Dr. Lemuel Moye, a physician and professor of biostatistics at the University of Texas, took the witness stand as the first Vioxx liability trial in California entered its second week.
          Moye concluded that the painkiller carried more risk than benefits to patients after he reviewed clinical trials conducted by Vioxx maker Merck & Co. dating to 1996.
          "Vioxx is a hazard for a stroke and for heart attack," Moye testified.
          The lawsuit was filed by 71-year-old Stewart Grossberg, a retired Northridge construction manager, who alleges that Vioxx caused him to have a heart attack in 2001, and that Merck marketed it without warning consumers of its potential problems.

Associated Press, "Lawyer: Merck Scrapped Study on Vioxx"

          Merck & Co. scrapped a planned study of the cardiac safety of Vioxx once it knew U.S. regulators were going to tone down their warning about heart risks for patients taking the painkiller, a plaintiff's lawyer argued Friday in a product liability trial. More...

New York Times, "Merck Admits a Data Error on Vioxx"

          In an admission that could undermine one of its core defenses in Vioxx-related lawsuits, Merck said yesterday that it had erred when it reported in early 2005 that a crucial statistical test showed that Vioxx caused heart problems only after 18 months of continuous use.
          That statistical analysis test does not support Merck's 18-month theory about Vioxx, the company acknowledged yesterday.
          But Dr. Peter S. Kim, Merck's chief scientist, said the company stood by the overall findings it reported in 2005 — including the conclusion that the drug's heart risks were not apparent if patients took it less than 18 months.
          But outside scientists said yesterday that Merck's admission, when considered along with other clinical trials of the drug and studies tracking real-world Vioxx use, supports critics' longstanding claims that Vioxx caused heart problems quickly.
          "There never was any evidence for the 18-month story," said Dr. Alastair J. J. Wood, a drug safety expert at Vanderbilt University.
          The 18-month issue is crucial both for the 20 million Americans who took Vioxx, an arthritis drug and painkiller, and for Merck's future. Merck faces at least 11,500 lawsuits, covering 23,000 people, from patients who say that Vioxx caused their heart attacks and strokes. Merck cited the 18-month theory when it withdrew Vioxx, a painkiller, from the market in September 2004, based on preliminary findings from a clinical trial called Approve.
          In defending the lawsuits, Merck has consistently taken the position that Vioxx can cause heart problems only if it is used continuously for more than 18 months. But in the five Vioxx court cases in which juries have reached decisions so far, Merck has lost three times — twice in cases in which the heart attack victim had taken the drug for fewer than 18 months.

Reuters, "Report: Vioxx risk seen with short-term use; Data showed all patients who took painkiller faced increased heart risk"

          Merck & Co. Inc. has provided new data to U.S. regulators showing that all patients who took the arthritis medicine Vioxx were at increased risk of heart attacks, strokes and other complications, National Public Radio reported Wednesday.
          Merck, which disputed the report, withdrew Vioxx from the market in September 2004 after a study showed the drug doubled the chances of heart attacks and strokes in patients who took it for at least 18 months.
          A 107-page report provided to the Food and Drug Administration by Merck last week included data from a four-year study suggesting the risk started much earlier, NPR said.
          “Experts who have reviewed (the data) for NPR say it shows that patients were at higher risk of heart problems and strokes almost as soon as they started taking Vioxx,” NPR said.
          FDA spokeswoman Laura Alvey said the agency was reviewing all the data Merck had submitted.

New York Times, "Follow-Up Study on Vioxx Safety Is Disputed"

          Two prominent medical researchers are taking issue with Merck's conclusion that a follow-up study of patients who took the painkiller Vioxx shows that the drug posed no "statistically significant" risk to the heart once people stopped taking it.
          Merck announced its conclusion on Thursday in reporting on the health of patients in a Vioxx study a year after that study was suspended in September 2004.
          The company ended that study because a disproportionate number of people taking the drug were having strokes or heart attacks. At the same time, Merck took Vioxx off the market. Since then, lawyers have filed thousands of lawsuits on behalf of former Vioxx patients or their families.
          The two independent medical researchers said in interviews yesterday that Merck might have been premature in reaching the conclusion announced Thursday, in part because the patients in the study needed to be monitored for longer than one year.
          Merck acknowledged Thursday that the number of strokes or heart attacks among patients during the one-year follow-up indicated a 64 percent higher risk of cardiac problems among those who had taken Vioxx, compared with a placebo. But the company said the overall numbers of problems were too small to give them statistical significance.
          The independent researchers, though, said it was too soon to draw any conclusions about whether Vioxx's dangers to coronary arteries ended once a person stopped taking it.
          "It would be very important to continue to follow these patients in Year 2 and 3, to see if the risk continues," said Dr. Steven E. Nissen, chief of cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic.
          The 64 percent higher risk that Merck acknowledged in the follow-up study, Dr. Nissen said, "has rather important scientific implications, because it suggests there was some kind of permanent or longstanding injury to the artery that makes it susceptible to these kinds of continuing events."

Associated Press, "Vioxx Raises Risk for Year After Use; Medication May Increase Heart Attack Odds Even After Patients Stop Drug"

          People who took the painkiller Vioxx were at increased risk of heart attack and stroke for at least a year after they stopped taking the drug, several doctors said Friday, challenging claims the drug’s maker had made the day before.
          The doctors refuted the interpretation of a study by Merck & Co. Company officials had contended Thursday that users of Vioxx weren’t at increased risk of heart attack or stroke in the year after quitting the drug.
          “Merck misrepresented the results of this study,” said Dr. Steven Nissen, a cardiologist at Cleveland Clinic who is leading a huge international study of the risks of several other painkillers.

Associated Press, "Jury Awards Vioxx Plaintiff $9M in Damages"

          A jury awarded $9 million in punitive damages on Tuesday to a man who blamed his heart attack on Vioxx, finding that manufacturer Merck & Co. failed to warn about the risks of its arthritis drug and misrepresented the risks to physicians.
          The damages are in addition to $4.5 million already awarded to John McDarby, 77, of Park Ridge, who suffered a heart attack after four years on Vioxx, a painkiller taken by 20 million Americans before being pulled off the market.
          In its only other loss in a Vioxx case, Merck was ordered last August to pay $253 million to the widow of a man who died after taking the drug for a short time. That amount will be reduced because the law in Texas, where the case was heard, limits punitive damages.
          The drug company said it would appeal.

Associated Press, "Judge Won't Stop Jury Hearing for Merck"

          A judge rejected on Friday a Merck & Co. lawyer's request that she halt a jury hearing on possible punitive damages for a former Vioxx user who had a heart attack after using the painkiller for four years. On Wednesday, the jury awarded John McDarby $3 million and his wife $1.5 million, saying Merck failed to warn of Vioxx' risks and that the company had misrepresented them to prescribing physicians. The jury also found Merck intentionally suppressed information about the arthritis drug's risks.
          With jurors out of the courtoom on Friday, Merck lawyer Hope S. Freiwald told the judge that the jury shouldn't even get to deliberate on punitive damages because lawyers for McDarby had not made their case. But Superior Court Judge Carol Higbee denied the company's motion.
          Under New Jersey law, punitive damages are limited to five times compensatory damages, which in this case would be $22.5 million. Such damages are designed to punish companies for misbehavior. It was unclear early Friday when the jury would begin deliberations.

Associated Press, "Former Merck CEO Denies Hiding Vioxx Safety Data"

          Making his first appearance in a Vioxx trial, the former chief executive of Merck & Co. said Thursday that the company was forthright about the safety risks of its troubled arthritis drug during his tenure — despite a jury verdict to the contrary.
          Raymond Gilmartin, 65, who retired last year after 11 years of running the company, testified during a hearing to determine whether Merck should pay punitive damages in addition to the $4.5 million it was ordered to pay a former Vioxx user, who suffered a heart attack, and his wife.
          According to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that Lanier showed to jurors, Gilmartin was making about $3 million in salary and bonuses in 2000, when Merck received the results of a separate clinical study in which Vioxx users suffered five times as many heart attacks as those taking naproxen.

The Associated Press, "Jury finds Merck failed to warn of Vioxx heart attack risk"

          A state jury found Merck & Co. liable on Wednesday for one of two former Vioxx users' heart attacks and ordered he receive $4.5 million in damages in a closely-watched trial involving two New Jersey men.
          The jury found the company failed to adequately warn both plaintiffs about the risk factors linking the now-withdrawn painkiller to heart attacks and strokes, but said the drug was only a factor in one of the men's illnesses.
          The panel said the company concealed the risks of the drug for both men, but ruled that only John McDarby, 77, a retired insurance agent from Park Ridge, should receive compensation. The verdict came after less than two days of deliberations by the jury of six women and two men. The trial was the first dealing with plaintiffs who blamed illnesses on long-term use of the painkiller.

Associated Press, "Merck May Face Class-Action Vioxx Suit"

          Merck & Co. suffered a significant legal setback Friday when an appeals court ruled a nationwide class-action lawsuit can go forward that allows health insurers and others to sue to recover the billions of dollars they spent on Vioxx.
          If the case does go forward, Merck faces substantial financial risk because under New Jersey's Consumer Fraud Act the company would have to pay triple damages to the plans. The plaintiffs allege Merck deliberately misrepresented Vioxx's safety as it concealed the drug's health risks, which violates the Fraud Act.
          The Appellate Division found that New Jersey Superior Court Judge Carol E. Higbee acted properly when she said the state law can be applied to all plaintiffs. It also agreed with her contention that combining claims from health plans is a better method of settling suits than trying them individually. The Division said a class-action case would present complex management problems, but it would be a "relatively inexpensive" solution for the numerous health plans who have problems and complaints about Merck.

San Francisco Chronicle, "Judge Denies Motion for End to Vioxx Trial"

          A judge on Tuesday rejected a motion by Merck & Co. to dismiss the cases of two New Jersey men who blame Vioxx for their heart attacks, setting the stage for the drugmaker to begin its defense in the two-week-old trial. Merck's lawyers petitioned Superior Court Judge Carol Higbee for a directed verdict, saying lawyers for Thomas Cona and John McDarby had not presented enough evidence to support a jury verdict in their clients' favor.
          Higbee denied that motion and two others by Merck asking that she strike the testimony of two plaintiffs' experts. Lawyers for Cona and McDarby rested their case against the Whitehouse Station-based drugmaker Monday and Tuesday after presenting 14 witnesses and hammering away at a handful of key themes: that Merck knew the risks of Vioxx and failed to warn consumers, that the company fought the U.S. Food and Drug Administration over a label change and that Cona and McDarby would not have taken Vioxx if they had known what the company knew.
          The company faces about 9,650 suits over Vioxx in state and federal courts. So far, Merck has won two trials and lost one in the legal war over the now-withdrawn drug, which was shown by a Merck study to double the risk of heart attack and stroke when taken for 18 months or more.

Associated Press, "Vioxx Trial Underway in Merck's Home State"

          The legal fight over Vioxx returned to New Jersey on Monday, with the lawyer for a man who blames his heart attack on the blockbuster arthritis drug telling jurors that executives with manufacturer Merck & Co. knowingly concealed its risks from consumers.
          Mark Lanier, the attorney for Thomas Cona, 59, said the use of Vioxx made people with risk factors for heart disease "walking time bombs" but Merck withheld information about the drug to make more money selling it. "They decided to cut corners. That's basically what this case is about," Lanier said in opening statements.
          Cona's case is being tried along with that of John McDarby, 77, of Park Ridge, N.J., because the two cases have been consolidated by the judge overseeing more than 5,000 state court cases against Merck. Lawyers for McDarby and Merck were to give their openings later Monday. So far, Merck has won two Vioxx cases and lost a third in courtrooms around the country. Another trial is ongoing in Rio Grande City, Texas.
          Merck, which is based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., sold the drug beginning in 1999 as a pain reliever for arthritis and osteoarthritis sufferers who found other pain drugs too harsh on the stomach. The company pulled it off the market in September 2004 after a clinical study showed it doubled the risk of heart attacks and strokes after 18 months' use.

Associated Press, "Jury Clears Merck in Vioxx Federal Trial"

          A federal jury handed Merck & Co. a major victory on Friday, clearing the drug maker of any responsibility in the death of a 53-year-old Florida man who had a heart attack after taking its once popular painkiller Vioxx for less than a month.
          This was the second court victory for Merck, and the first in a federal court. The company had argued in this case that plaintiff lawyers never proved any link between Vioxx and the heart attack Richard "Dickey" Irvin suffered in 2001. Merck's lawyers contended Irvin's age, gender and diet all put him at risk for heart attacks

Associated Press, "Journal Article a Wild Card in Vioxx Trial"

          A top medical journal's criticism of a study cited in Vioxx lawsuits is expected to play a part in the retrial of the first federal Vioxx lawsuit — but it's not clear if it will be a legal hand grenade or a nuclear warhead.
          The disclosure that some negative data was omitted from the study could make manufacturer Merck & Co. look as if it's hiding something, legal experts say. That is what attorneys for Evelyn Irvin Plunkett, whose husband died after taking the drug for a month, say they can prove in the trial starting Monday. More....