Did Merck Conceal Vioxx Study Heart Attacks?

By Dave Wilson

Published on December 09, 2005

An editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine claims that Merck & Co. hid damaging data in a report published about a clinical study on Vioxx.

The editorial questions the integrity of a report Merck submitted to the journal in 2000. The authors of the editorial contend that Merck employees failed to include the heart attacks of three patients that participated in a Vioxx study before submitting their article for publication. The omissions and inaccuracies invalidate certain calculations and conclusions reached in the report.

While the New England Journal of Medicine has been aware of the omissions since 2001, it was believed that Merck authors did not have knowledge of the heart attacks until it was too late to include them in the report. However, an internal Merck memorandum recently revealed that the report writers knew about the heart attacks four months before the results of the study were published.

Merck's lawyers have presented this same report as evidence in all three Vioxx trials to date. If it can be proven that the clinical study data was tampered with, it would nullify a critical piece of evidence for the Merck defense team in the defective drugs case. A spokesman said that the company would release a statement responding to the editorial shortly.

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