Curveball for Merck
TEXT OF STORY
SCOTT JAGOW: Things have been looking pretty bleak for drugmaker Merck. It faces thousands of lawsuits over its painkiller Vioxx. And the company is taking on those cases one at a time to prove Vioxx did not cause heart problems in some patients. Well, there’s some new information that will give Merck’s lawyers a huge headache. Stacey Vanek-Smith reports.
STACEY VANEK-SMITH: Last year the New England Journal of Medicine published a Merck-sponsored study that showed the risks associated with Vioxx didn’t show up unless patients took the drug for 18 months.
But the medical journal has now published a correction, saying cardiac problems can occur after only four months. That might sound like semantics, but it could make things a whole lot worse for Merck, says David Logan, dean of Roger Williams law school.
DAVID LOGAN: Well, to say that even when they were being supposedly forthright, they were still sitting on data that suggested that there’s a whole other range of cases that should expose them to liability. And that’s the kind of conduct that can rise to the level of fraud and expose a defendant to multiple damage awards.
Logan says the new information could push Merck to work out some kind of global settlement for Vioxx.
LOGAN: Their articulated strategy of fighting every one of these, you know, to the deatha€¦seems less likely now.
Merck has acknowledged flaws in the analysis, but says it stands by the conclusions of the study.
I’m Stacey Vanek-Smith for Marketplace.
There’s a lot happening in the world. Through it all, Marketplace is here for you.
You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible.
Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.
