Fourth Vioxx Trial Gets Underway
The fourth Vioxx trial began today in a Starr County Texas state court. The case involves the late Loenel Garza, a 71 year old man who died of a massive heart attack in 2001. Mr. Garza took samples of Vioxx for about a month before the heart attack, and was told after a stress test shortly before his death that he had a 2% chance of dying from a heart attack.
To further bolster the plaintiff's case, emails where recently released by the editor for the New England Journal of Medicine regarding Merck's failure to report 3 heart attacks to the VIGOR study in 2001. Merck blamed the 4-5 fold increase in heart attacks on the prophylactic effect of naproxen, a comparative drug used in the study. An excerpt from one of the emails reads "[y]our explanation lacked scientific objectivity, the relative risks [of Vioxx and heart attacks] were presented so as to favor naproxen and discount the possibilty that [Vioxx] might be harmful."
The Texas trial is expected to last into March.