Posted on 11/03/2005 7:38:42 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) -- In a major victory for Merck & Co., a jury has found the drugmaker properly warned consumers about Vioxx risks. The finding means Merck will not be held liable for the 2001 heart attack suffered by a man taking the painkiller.
"The trial lawyers aren't going to like this"
Well, the defense ones do . . .
This is a very, very small victory, but I'll take it.
Pharmaceutical companies should be shielded from lawsuits. After all, these medications go through a rigorous process of FDA approval. There are side effects for all medications, even tylenol and aspirin.
BigPharma vs. money grubbing lawyers....what a battle!
What was his dossage? That's the fallout from these suits that's so annoying, the people having the heart attacks are generally on huge dossages, meanwhile people on 10mg or less for occassional pains can't get the drug anymore because the drug company has fled in terror. The question isn't can the drug present a problem, all drugs have side effects, the question is was the potential problem well enough documented and should the drug be removed because of the problem. The answer is yes and no, the problem was well documented and the drug should still be available.
i was under the impression these drugs hyped up the occurrence of stroke, not heart attack. there's some pretty strong evidence linking the two. strokes suck BTW.
ROFL!
Do you have the "Knights of NI!" as well??? LOL! :) Maybe Kerry can be our "Knight of Knee", he's on his knees so often... "Theeeerrrrrrrrazza??!??!?!?!??!!!!"?
HA! Good.
I hate to hear about people who have bad reactions, but it is too easy to focus on the one bad case while IGNORING the thousands of people who use these drugs and are helped by them.
We don't have journalists or lawyers with the energy to go looking for the many, many people who have NO complaints about Vioxx--but think it is a great HELP to them living better lives.
Unfortunately, don't count on it.
Tobacco won some of their earlier suits too. Merck has deep pockets and the personal injury lawyers will just keep finding a slightly different case until they start winning.
Maybe juries are finally getting a clue.
He's no longer CEO. Believe it or not the new CEO is named Richard "Dick" Clark!
That is good news.
I took Vioxx for pain that other meds failed to take care of (even narcotics).
It is a miracle pain killer for those that can safely take it.
One of my Doctors picked up the fact it raised my blood pressure so they took me off it.
The problem was with the doctors that prescribed it and did not monitor for the side effects not the company that made it.
Is it possible his heart attack was caused by a clot considering his back injury made mobility difficult, thus more prone to deep venous thrombosis? What about pre-existing conditions, unknown, undiagnosed? We've all heard of young athletes dropping dead on the gym floor with no apparent indictation.
Good. I worked under him at Becton Dickinson.
Clateo Castolini was a better leader.
I don't want to rehash the past seven years of merck's actions. I will simply state that if -I say if- a person is told of the fact a study suggests you could have a heart attack or stroke if you take this drug, one could make that decision based on the risk. However if you are not aware of studies and you have a heart attack for simply taking a pain reliever that is wrong in my book. A jury is smart enough to see through some of these 'poor'cases. this was a case our firm never would have touched.
That'll help by beleguered Merck holdings
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