Forbes, "The Vioxx Safety Study Merck Didn't Do"

          On Sunday, 60 Minutes will run a story asking if Merck knew about the dangers of Vioxx, the arthritis drug that was pulled from the market because it doubled the risk of heart attack and stroke. Did Merck do enough to study Vioxx's effect on the heart?
          At a December 2001 meeting with financial analysts, Merck promised to study the safety of Vioxx and a follow-up drug, Arcoxia. To help prove the heart safety of Arcoxia, Merck announced a 23,542-patient trial called MEDAL in September 2002. Yet no similar study was conducted for Vioxx.
          Certainly, such cancer studies can turn up cardiovascular risk. In fact, it was one of the placebo-controlled studies, begun in 1999, that resulted in Vioxx being pulled from the market. There's only one problem: Cancer studies are not what others heard Merck promise at its meeting with the financial community in 2001. News sources, including Dow Jones and Reuters, reported at the time of the 2001 meeting that big cardiovascular trials were expected for both Vioxx and Arcoxia.
          In a letter to the public published in newspapers this morning, Merck Chief Executive Raymond Gilmartin defended his company's "consistent and rigorous adherence to scientific investigation, transparency and integrity." Moreover, Gilmartin wrote, "When questions arose, we took additional steps, including conducting further prospective, controlled studies to gain more clinical information about the medicine." It's certainly true that Merck studied its drug. But did it really do every study it said it would?