First of Vioxx Lawsuits Heads to Trial

By Kristen Hays
AP Business Writer
The Associated Press
Monday, June 27, 2005

Houston - For more than eight months, Vioxx eased the
pain and stiffness in Robert Ernst's hands. But eight
days after Ernst, a 59-year-old personal trainer, clocked
62 miles on a bike, he died in his sleep from arrhythmia,
or an irregular heartbeat.

Believing Vioxx caused her husband's death, Carol Ernst
will take on pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. in a Texas
court in July. After the delay of a similar case in
Alabama, it will be the first of 2,400 Vioxx lawsuits
filed nationwide to go to trial.

Merck removed Vioxx from the market in September 2004
after an in-house study showed that taking Vioxx doubled
the risk of heart attack and stroke for patients who took
it for 18 months or more.

Merck, the world's third-biggest drug maker, said 20
million people took Vioxx after it first went on sale
with great fanfare in 1999. The anti-inflammatory drug
was prescribed for arthritis, acute pain and disorders
such as carpal tunnel syndrome. Researchers also were
studying whether it could prevent some forms of cancer.

Mark Lanier, the Houston litigator representing Carol
Ernst, hopes to portray Merck as a relentless profit
machine with pushy sales people. He also said he will
demonstrate that Merck threatened to pull research
funding from skeptical doctors. And he says he will use
internal documents and e-mails to suggest the company
minimized the drug's potential health risks until the in-
house study was so overwhelming that Merck decided to
pull the drug.

"It's like Saddam Hussein wanting credit for coming out
with his hands up," Lanier said of Merck's voluntary
removal of Vioxx from the market.

More at:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050627/ap_on_he_me/vioxx_trial_1

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