Personal Injury Resources

The pill is put out by GlaxoSmithKline, the same people who have brought us the Paxil debacle (including having to settle with the US government because they were ripping off Medicaid as well as causing the deaths and deformation of many children, teens, and pre-born babies), and the Avandia controversy. (These drugs were also FDA approved, as was Vioxx. FDA approval does not equal safe, largely because the FDA does not fund independent studies but relies on the drug companies' own research.)

Gradually Americans discovered that they had a lot of other problems from sleepless to restless legs to toe fungus. But not until people started dying from Vioxx did all the warnings by consumer groups and doctors finally get some attention. Bill Frist actually pushed for a two year moratorium on ads, but Big Pharma convinced the Senate that they promised to do a better job at enforcing themselves. They would clean up their act.

In this 92-minute documentary, you'll hear from experts like FDA scientist Dr. David Graham, who strongly believes nothing has fundamentally changed since the Vioxx debacle more than two years ago. I was also fortunate enough to be featured in the video.

The film details the many aspects of Vioxx debacle from the perspective of patients who assumed the life-threatening pain reliever was safe because a bureaucracy stacked against anything and everything but big business didn't tell them otherwise.

When I visited California Natural Pain Relief, the folks there directed me to a doctor at another office. Since I experience occasional but painful attacks of gout, a form of arthritis, as well as other foot and knee pain, I brought a load of medical records and a vial full of Vioxx that I had been too scared to take. The doctor gave me a brief physical exam and a blood pressure test, discussed how marijuana could alleviate the pain and inflammation and wrote and signed an official-looking, green-trimmed recommendation. This included the doctor’s signature, a photocopy of my driver’s license and a key phrase: “approve of the use of cannabis for my patient.” I paid $150 cash.

Members of Congress have criticized the FDA’s oversight of drug safety in recent years, as studies linked antidepressants to suicide risk for children and painkillers to elevated chances of heart attacks. Merck & Co. withdrew its Vioxx painkiller in 2004 after a company study showed higher heart attack and stroke risks.

VIOXX is of course off the market, meaning that millions of arthritis sufferers are unable to take advantage of the pain relief it provided despite thousands -- thousands -- of courts deciding that VIOXX did not cause adverse side effects.

In the process, the health of about 162,000 sixth-grade girls living in Texas may be affected by the legislature's final decision as well as the coffers of Merck looking to a means to pay for all those lawsuits and legal fees associated with their killer drug, Vioxx.

Now its not that I dont trust the folks at the FDA. After all, they are the ones who gave us Vioxx, Thalidimide, and DDT. All perfectly safe. I guess I just dont see the rush. Why not serve this stuff in goverment lunch rooms for a few years, with a side order of Freedom Fries, and see what happens. Im sure our Gentleman Rancher President would be happy to dine on Fillet of Clone for the good of our nation.

It clearly reminds me of Merck that did exactly the same regarding Vioxx and Pfizer also misled everyone with regards to Celebrex and Bextra.

While Merck CEO gloats over the fact that they have not paid a single penny to any of the families of 60,000 Americans who have died after taking Vioxx, the company’s chief counsel, Ken Frazier, put it in the starkest terms. “Heart attacks are, unfortunately, a leading cause of death in the United States and have multiple causes,” he said. In other words, with two out of three Americans being either obese/overweight (and suffering from all kinds of problems related to cholesterol, diabestes, heart diseases, etc.), it is simply a piece of cake to argue that the victim “would have suffered a heart attack whether he was taking Vioxx or not” as Merck puts it.

The primary difference between torcetrapib and the Vioxx catastrophe: Vioxx was being used to treat an acute problem like pain, while this new
drug is designed solely to lower the risk of heart disease. The 
ultimate irony is that, if taken, torcetrapib will increase the risk.

In a setback to tens of thousands of Americans whose loved ones died (as many as 60,000 are dead) and others who suffered heart attacks and strokes, a jury in New Jersey did not agree with the claim of Elaine Doherty, a homemaker from Lawrenceville, N.J., who alleged that she took VIOXX daily from June 28, 2001, until she suffered a heart attack on Jan. 19, 2004, at age 65. She continued to take the medicine until Merck voluntarily withdrew it from the market in September 2004.

This is best shown by FDA whistleblower Dr. Graham. After warning of the dangers associated with Vioxx™ he described his work environment as one of hostility, threats, and intimidation. This same hostility applies to the environment at a drug company when, as a chemist, you disagree with a given drug’s safety and efficacy.

Such increased scrutiny of drug ads comes in the wake of product safety issues involving heavily promoted drugs including Vioxx, a painkiller that was pulled from the market nearly two years ago after studies showed it increased risks of heart attacks and strokes.

A lot of the more “modern” arthritis meds - Vioxx, Celebrex - etc. - don’t seem to work for me. If they give any relief, it is transitory; and given they have some rather interesting side effects, I don’t use them.

I expect the FDA to ensure that medications on the market are as safe and effective as possible. But the countless deaths linked to Vioxx, several antidepressants and now ADHD drugs has made me doubtful that Congress is taking seriously problems in our drug-safety system. To restore my faith that the government is doing all it can to ensure the medicines I take each day are as safe and effective, please support drug and medical device safety reform efforts this year.

There’s a report out stating that the amount of money spent on prescription drugs has slowed somewhat in 2005. Good news for employers and employees, and bad news for Big Pharma. The report suggests that the slowdown is due in part to the controversy over the CV complications of COX-2 inhibitors. While Bextra and Vioxx accounted for some $2.6 billion in sales in 2004, I don’t know how accurate this assertion is: Celebrex is still on the market and undoubtedly picked up some of the COX-2 slack.

The FDA has had a full plate with problems and issues, and now becoming almost entirely unpredictable can be thrown in on the list of problems. It wasn't that the FDA was ever fully predictable, but after recent drug and product recalls it has to make you wonder if they are becoming a Doubting Thomas. Bausch & Lomb's (BOL-NYSE) recent lens cleaner ReNu With MoistureLoc withdrawal, Merck's (MRK-NYSE) Vioxx woes, and even the Biogen-Idec (BIIB-NASDAQ) and Elan (ELN-NYSE/ADR) withdrawal of Tysabri are possibly ALL contributors to Neurocrine's woes this morning as it may be entirely possible that the FDA may be playing purely a defensive game.

Read the entire thing. Mallaby takes a few gratuitous shots at Bush but he does get things right with regard to the damage wrought by an out of control system in which unscrupulous attorneys are able to manipulate twelve people into bankrupting corporations like Merck.

A new study just released at the American Association of Cancer Researchers meeting in Washington, D.C., showed women who take medication to ease their arthritis pain are also protecting themselves against cancer. Joy Greer has fought arthritis for 20 years. To relieve her painful knees, she does water exercises every week and takes anti-inflammatory medication every day. “I just take it all the time. And to tell you the truth, I feel pretty good. So, I guess it’s working,” Greer said.It may be working even better than she realizes. The medications she takes are called cox-2 inhibitors. The immediate benefit for patients like Greer is that they reduce inflammation. Researchers said the long-term benefits for all women are much more profound. “We found that the selective cox-2 blockers — the new anti-inflammatory compounds like Vioxx and Celebrex — reduced the risk of breast cancer by about 70 percent,” Dr. Randall Harris of the Ohio State University Cancer Center said. Harris launched his study nearly seven years ago. Read More

Merck hurt the Dow, dropping 4.5 percent to $34.38 after a $4.5 million court decision against the pharmaceutical company regarding side effects of its drug Vioxx. The loss increased the chances that more lawsuits would be filed against the company.

As you all know, this is a big week in the Vioxx litigation, and many analysts have been discussing the two Vioxx trials currently being litigated in Atlantic City, NJ with a majority of opinion being that these are "make or break" trials for the plaintiffs. I don't necessarily agree that these are cases the plaintiffs "must win" or the Vioxx litigation is doomed, but rather that the arguments, strategy and tactics on long term use cases will again be refined by both sides based on the facts of the case and the eventual outcome. Vioxx isn't going away, win or lose for the plaintiffs, and this trial will show how much further they need to go to get to the facts and evidence needed in each legitimate case to bring in a successful verdict.

On September 30, 2004, Merck & Co Inc (MRK) recalled Vioxx due to negative clinical trial results. Recipients of this drug seem to experience increased experience of heart attack, stroke, blood clots, or intestinal bleeding. Both the American Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine stress the dangers of this prescription drug. European and American cardiologists recognize the implicit dangers of this highly marketed arthritis prescription. This does not have to happen to you when safe natural and effective arthritis pain relief might provide relief!

What i've heard is that the new entity will take dead aim at the Mass tort market in an attempt to capture the assets and premium that will be created when, or if, asbestos, vioxx, celebrex, etc, start to be organized into settlements. It's an institutional strategy of "bigger is better" so that they can demonstrate they have the reach to handle a national mass tort, and in it's way is a continuation of the old defense model of capturing a source of premium, and then building out offices to handle the regional servicing of that account. The question will be whether or not trial lawyers are going to be as amenable to this strategy as the casualty companies were in the past.

The ever-increasingly empowering of patients has caused this type of question to become a regular occurance. On occasionI find myself longing for the "good old days" when patients accepted without question what the doctor recommended. Fighting with media sensationalism and internet mis-information takes a good chunk of my time. Questions were heightened with the recall of the popular drugs Vioxx and Bextra. The perception is widespread that prescription medications are dangerous while untested and unregulated "supplements" are accepted as safe.

Merck may be evil, but the booming billion dollar no bouncing baby abstinence business is eviler! Don’t worry, everyone! Merck will go the way of the dodo next year after Zocor goes the way of the generics and Vioxx goes the way of civility. For serious as a heart attack attack!

Cuty Furberg has been removed from the FDA advisory panel meeting on arthritic drugs such as Vioxx (COX-2 drugs) because of his criticism of the entire class of medications made last week. He was told his invitation to take part in the panel’s February meeting has been removed. The reason given was an intellectual conflict of interest.

Other attempts hold more promise. The industry is pinning a lot of home on an overhaul of direct-to-consumer advertising. Merck's (MRK ) Vioxx debacle appears to have delivered the message that it's not such a good idea to persuade millions of people to take a drug they may not need. So there's a slow shift away from ads that push a particular brand of drug to those that raise awareness of specific diseases.

Next time I see one of those Believe in Cleveland ads about the Clinic’s Heart Center, I’ll have a good laugh. It’s hard to believe in Cleveland, when someone like Mal Mixon sides with big phrama and not with someone who’s made the Clinic world-famous. No use wringing your hands about the brain drain when people get treated like this.

Now, I know that you “let them eat cake” GOP assholes are going to point out that their profits are actually down from 2003. True enough, but $5.8 billion in profits is fan-fucking-tastic in a year when you have to pull a drug (Vioxx) that kills people.

I'm curious as to what the use-death ratio is. Vioxx had about 20 million prescriptions resulting in 50 deaths.

The evidence that's out there certainly seems to support his claim. Take theVioxx verdict against Merck, for example;

These ads drive a wedge between doctor and patient. For a while, I was both a family practitioner and a researcher, and I knew as much about the real data behind Vioxx and Celebrex as anybody. I knew they were neither safer nor more effective than the much less expensive alternatives and would tell my patients so. Nonetheless, many still demanded these drugs, which shows the tremendous power of marketing.

In what continues to be the most comprehensive reporting of the Vioxx trial, The Wall Street Journal has an interesting piece on the novel practice of allowing jurors to ask questions during the trial. Judge Carol Higbee has allowed the jury to ask separate questions of witnesses after both lawyers have completed their direct and cross examinations, and many of the questions have raised concerns among court watches and jury consultants about the effectiveness of the plaintiff's argument.

But Crawford’s tenure was marked by increasing criticism of the agency, as the painkiller Vioxx was pulled off the market for safety problems and regulators held up wider access to emergency contraception.

Of course, Merck claims that they pulled Vioxx off the market as soon as they realized the dangers after a 2004 study. I call a huge bullshit flag on that one. Chances are they pulled the drug off the market when someone threatened to make the damning data public, which would have resulted in an even worse public relations fiasco than they're dealing with now.

So what is the cost of a crime? Well that depends. I won't go into that ridiculous Vioxx verdict to claim each murder by a parolee costs a quarter-billion bucks.

You know there is truth to be had when the Washington Post agrees with the WSJ on matters of jury payouts.

The gist of the article is that the FDA's review of Exubera, Pfizer's inhalable insulin, will be a test case to see how the post-Vioxx administration will handle drugs that come with potential hazards. The interesting bit to me, as a diabetic who also enjoys breathing, was this:

These are some of the comments from the jurors on the recently concluded trial in the Vioxx recall case against Merck. I have been in countless conference rooms where technologists and marketing folks have strategized how they could get away without disclosing something to the customer. Most of the time they get away with it but as this case shows, once they get caught, the end is near for that business.

On why the Vioxx verdict creates a public health risk. From Richard Epstein writing on OpinionJournal. The author is, like me, in the industry, but I believe his points are quite solid. My initial take on the subject is here.

The link will take you to Health24.com and that will give you the only numbers I could find regarding any increased cardiac risk due to Vioxx. Specifically, in a clinical trial of 4000 people, there was a .5% risk of a cardiac event (e.g., heart attack). However, there was a 14.6% risk of a cardiovascular problem (i.e., anything short of a heart attack, etc.)

The link will take you to Health24.com and that will give you the only numbers I could find regarding any increased cardiac risk due to Vioxx. Specifically, in a clinical trial of 4000 people, there was a .5% risk of a cardiac event (e.g., heart attack). However, there was a 14.6% risk of a cardiovascular problem (i.e., anything short of a heart attack, etc.)

The widow of the man who took the drug was awarded an astounding $253 million by the jury. According to the coverage, Merck also faces over 4,000 other lawsuits based on the pain medication.

Vioxx is a COX-2 selective nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID). Vioxx is also related to the nonselective NSAIDs , such as ibuprofen and naproxen. Vioxx is a prescription medicine used to relieve signs and symptoms of arthritis, acute pain in adults, and painful menstrual cycles.

Merck & Co. has vowed to defend itself against each of more than 3,800 pending state and federal lawsuits alleging it knew its popular painkiller, Vioxx, could be dangerous long before the company voluntarily pulled it from the market last year.

The New Jersey drug maker’s first chance to do so begins with jury selection Monday in a small-town Texas courtroom 30 miles south of Houston.

Is it only me, or does anyone else see the connection between that kind of brazen lying to the public, and things like this:

Merck & Co. researchers privately sought to reformulate Vioxx in 2000 to reduce its cardiovascular side effects, even as the drug maker was publicly playing down a study that highlighted the pain relief medication's potential heart attack risk, an internal company document shows.

In a bizarre development, a panel of Canadian expert is recommending that Vioxx, the drug that is estimated to have killed as many as 50,000 Americans and caused 140,000 injuries in the US, be allowed back on the market. Merck voluntarily recalled the drug in September last year after a study showed that it increased the risk of heart attacks and strokes. Since then, Merck is being sued by tens of thousands of Vioxx victims and States of Texas and New York have filed lawsuits for fraud.

As was feared by many Vioxx victims, Merck is adopting delaying tactics in Vioxx lawsuits. The first of the cases to go to trial next week is that of Carol Ernst, whos husband Robert Ernst, reportedly died after taking Vioxx.

The drug most affected was Vioxx’s primary competitor, Mobic (Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals), which saw prices rise between 7% and 11% depending on the dosage.

My book starts with me telling Claude (one of the characters) how I inadvertently made some serious money with AdSense because of the Vioxx recall. What did I do? I wrote a humor piece, Vioxx Recall Leads To Worldwide Spam Reduction (reproduced on the MakeEasyMoneyWithGoogle.com site), the day after Merck announced it was withdrawing Vioxx from the market. As it turns out, this was a smart move on my part because of all the lawyers who jumped into the AdSense ad pool looking for Vioxx users as potential clients. Luckily, this happened to me during...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was "the single greatest obstacle to doing anything effective" about Vioxx, said FDA drug safety officer David Graham at an unprecedented roundtable of medical whistleblowers sponsored by the Public Library of Science (PLoS) and the Government Accountability Project.

The evidence showing a strong association between selective COX-2 inhibition (from Vioxx™, Bextra™, or Celebrex™) and risk of heart disease and stroke has been piling on ever since Vioxx™ was removed from the market in the fall of last year. Now, we have studies that get into the nitty-gritty of exactly how COX-2 inhibitors do this. This is useful information because it might lead to clinical tests that help determine the risk-benefit balance of going on COX-2 medication and might even inform dosage.

The recent Vioxx recall underscores the importance of carefully considering your health conditions and potential side effects before taking any medication.

It seems the FDA is taking a slow and cautious route on new approvals, especially after the Vioxx withdrawal, as we noted before. In April, the FDA ordered new warnings on all antipsychotic drugs, including Risperdal, to alert physicians to a higher death rate when the medicines are prescribed for the atypical use of treating dementia in elderly patients.

Regular Capsules readers probably have noticed the numerous links to articles, reports, and research that suggests the "evidence" we base the gold standard on may itself be tainted, between pharma-paid ghostwriters for journal articles, to the Vioxx studies that were cherry-picked to show only the best results, to the basic question of pharma’s funding of clinical trials. And does the trend toward the offshoring of clinical trials affect their relevancy as evidence on which to place recommendations for U.S. populations?

After two notorious recent incidents (the removal of Vioxx and the use of anti-depressants in children) there have been allegations that drug manufacturers withheld data that indicated the possibility of safety problems from academic researchers.

A federal judge told dozens of lawyers crowded into a courtroom here Monday that there could ultimately be up to 100,000 cases filed against Merck & Co. over its now withdrawn pain reliever Vioxx, and that he could hear a case as early as the fall.

Aspirin has seen a resurgence in recent months after the recall of painkillers such as Vioxx and Bextra. Doctors and patients have in many cases reverted to the "little white pill" for its proven reliability.

Your two pieces from Maria Cattaui and Pat Choate bemoaning the state of IP protection and the nations of scofflaws who are stealing people's ideas and getting away with billions are passionate, but about as monocular as you can get. At no point do either of your commentators acknowledge the fact that IP protections are broken and have been grossly abused by those who demand their protection.

Maria raises the spectre of contaminated knock-off drugs, without commenting on the egregious behaviour of the producers of Vioxx and Celebrex whose commitment to the profits generated by their precious IP transcends the lives of the people taking them, nor does she deal with the cynical tweaking of drugs about to fall into the public domain purely for the purpose of denying access to others rather than engaging their innovative resources to bring online new ones.

Really disturbing piece on Merck’s promoting of Vioxx, downplaying the heart risks. A shame. I used to think Merck was one of the more ethical of the drug companies.

Just as the title says. AP reporting that the first vioxx case to go to trial might be set in Texas for July 11.

Bextra is part of a class of drugs known as COX-2 inhibitors that also includes Pfizer's drug Celebrex and Merck & Co Inc.'s Vioxx, which was withdrawn last year due to increased risks of heart attack and stroke.

First we learn that Vioxx increases the risk of heart attacks. Now, we learn that Merck may have had research, as early as 2000, that uncovered these problems, but didn’t make it known to the public. It is time to end this secrecy.