Associated Press, "Merck failed to test safety of Vioxx on heart; No studies conducted before drug went on market, company official says"

          Merck & Co. didn't do any significant studies on whether Vioxx could cause heart attacks or other serious cardiovascular problems before the popular painkiller went on the market in 1999, the company's top epidemiologist testified Wednesday.
          Nancy Santanello, head of Merck's epidemiology department and the company’s corporate face at the nation’s first Vioxx-related lawsuit to go to trial, said nothing in Merck’s database before the drug went on the market in 1999 indicated it could cause heart attacks.
          "At that time we didn’t think there was any risk," she said in her third day of questioning from plaintiff's lawyer. She had yet to be questioned by the company’s lawyers.
          The plaintiff, Carol Ernst, alleges that her 59-year-old husband, Robert, died in his sleep in 2001 because he had taken Vioxx for eight months to ease pain in his hands. He died of an arrhythmia, or irregular heartbeat. Her lawsuit is the first to go before a jury of more than 4,000 pending in federal and state courts.
          Plaintiff's counsel contends Merck knew years earlier that Vioxx could be dangerous but needed the lucrative drug to keep its bottom line growing after patents for other big sellers ran out in 2000 and 2001. Santanello acknowledged under his questioning that Vioxx accounted for a dime of every dollar in Merck's $2.5 billion in sales in 2002.
          In 2000 a study showed some Vioxx users could suffer five times as many heart attacks as those using the older painkiller naproxen -- sold under the brand name Aleve.
          In early 2002 Merck canceled a study intended to focus on Vioxx's effects on the heart.