New Jersey Judge Overturns Pro-Merck Verdict, Grants New Trial

By Nathan Abbott

Published on August 21, 2006

The original lawsuit was filed by Frederick Humeston, who suffered a heart attack in September 2001 after having used Vioxx for two months. The jury on the case found that Merck had provided adequate warning to doctors and consumers regarding the dangers of Vioxx, particularly regarding the dangers to those who took the drug for relatively short periods of time.

New evidence, however, suggests that Merck may not have fully disclosed the dangers posed to those who used Vioxx for 18 months or less. A letter published last December in the New England Journal of Medicine alleged that important data was deleted from a Vioxx study. The removed data related to three heart attacks suffered by people who had taken the drug for less than 18 months.

The researchers who conducted the trial claim that the data was not in the original study because the heart attacks occurred after the deadline for inclusion.

The judge’s decision adds to Merck’s woes, as the company was recently ordered to pay $51 million in a New Orleans Vioxx case and is facing over 14,000 other Vioxx-related lawsuits.

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