subject: The Lawsuit Against Vioxx [print this page] Vioxx lawsuit has been a huge case for the health care sector. It was once on the list of top medicine for arthitis aches presecribed., before it was pulled of shelves by Merck its manufacturer. It was taken off the marketplace in September 2004 when research trials proved that it increased the chances of cardiac arrest inside the patient. Although the drug has been removed from the marketplace for a while, legal action against the manufacturer Merck will continue and has increased for sometime now. Vioxx suit is now a common house hold term after a judge awarded $253.4 million to the Carol Ernst, widow of Bob Ernst due to his death in May 2001 from the medicine. This broke records for how much had ever been awarded to an individual plaintiff on a case. He used Vioxx most often. This historic judgement prompted more and more personal injury attorneys to take cases that client claimed to be harmed by the medicine they had been taking. This Vioxx lawsuit defeat caused Merck stock to fall 8 percent in an afternoon and it has yet to recover.
Through the 1998 clinical trials for Vioxx, Merck the manufacturer reported to FDA that there was no apparent cardiovascular signals. Basically this means that there was not any people dropping dead from cardiac arrest. At the same time that the clinical trials were taking place Merck had been conducting an internal trial that revealed major cardiovascular problems with users of Vioxx. This was also labeled as Study - 090 Merck claimed the reason they had not published the results is because the sample size was not large enough.
FDA gave formal approval in 1999, Vioxx was the 2nd nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medication or COX-2 inhibitor approved after its predecessor Celebrex. Celebrex was another health condition causing drug.
Vioxx was supposed to fufill the problem of sales for the other drugs in the Merck line. But these sales slowed down once doctors found their patients developing thrombus that could lead to cardiac arrest Merck has tried to calm doctor's fears with new precaution information that includes mention of the heart risks, and assuring them of an ongoing study to collect more information on cardiovascular outcomes of using Vioxx. Vioxx was promoted agressively in the international market in 2003, you would be able to find it in 80 countries and had sales over 2.5 billion dollars. The tests Merck were doing revealed that Vioxx had deadly results.
The FDA, in 2001, mandated that all bottle have warning issues that explain the adverse reactions. Merck was reprimanded for the incorrect information about the side effects of Vioxx they had provided for the medical community.
Many issues came to light after the labels had been updated using the warnings required by the FDA. Industry specialists and attorneys of people affected started building their case. This evidence gathering resulted in Merck's negligence to recalled the drug. Massive marketing campaigns in all forms of media requested patients that had been harmed by Vioxx to come forward. It help inform everyone and find the people who had been effected from it.
The last nail in the coffin was Merck's announcement in September 2004, withdrawing Vioxx. This established credibility for the personal injury litigation which was well on its way. The was the birth of the Vioxx lawsuit. In 2005 is when some of the first cases had been filed. The very first settled case was Ernst's. This is the tip of the iceberg. Because of the ruling on Ernst's case Vioxx would have wrongful death cases that could ruin Merck financially.
In August of 2005 there were 4,951 cases filed and thousands more were expected. Seeing that the number of Vioxx lawsuits is increasing by the day, Merck may consider offering settlements to plaintiffs in some cases. The strategy Merck had planned on was defending itself in every case. This was the first act Merck made to undo the damage Vioxx had caused in peoples lives. Lawyers expect at least 25,000 suits to be filed eventually. From May 1999 to September of 2004 their were 20 million users of Vioxx. Merck stopped sales the drug once the clinical testing showed that Vioxx caused heart attacks and strokes.
The Vioxx lawsuit still has the crown for being one of the primary personal injury lawsuit in history of medicine.
