vioxx

"In July 2000 I analyzed a JAMA article by Dr. Barbara Starfield from Johns Hopkins School of public health. "I carefully reviewed her data and came to the conclusion that doctors were the third leading cause of death. I created that headline, and over the last ten years it has been widely...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=a5z.VogSbbXo&refer=home On the way home from work yesterday they talked about this on NPR. How can we have any faith in big pharmaceutical when they behave like this? I knew they were strictly profit motivated, but this takes the cake.

I don't know if this will give any comfort to those who had a hissy fit over the first Vioxx case verdict ($253 million to the plaintiff, but in reality $26 million plus interest), but for what it's worth, Merck is now 1-1. Interesting comments from attorney Mark Lanier about "dirty hands"...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15713943&query_hl=1 Cardiovascular events associated with rofecoxib in a colorectal adenoma chemoprevention trial. Bresalier RS, Sandler RS, Quan H, Bolognese JA, Oxenius B, Horgan K, Lines C, Riddell...

Merck & Co. announced this morning it will withdraw its arthritis drug Vioxx wordlwide. Studies by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration indicate patients taking Vioxx have 50% higher risk of heart attack and sudden cardiac death than those taking Celebrex. from a Merck & Co Press Release