What we know is that Vioxx is linked to higher rates of cardiac events not that it causes them. Therefore, in each individual case that is tried it is up to the plaintiffs to try to convince the jury that Vioxx not the other risk factors caused the cardiac event. The "Tort reform" answer is to try the case for what is proven, that is that there is a higher incidence of cardiac events. Instead, the cases are based on the individual patient where it can not be proven that vioxx caused there heart attacks. With the present system, patients at higher risk play the lottery of the courts. Given that only a higher risk is what has been proven, Merck will come out ahead, patients will lose. Make Merck pay to screen and treat based on the higher risk, patients will win.

Kia: Merck removal of Vioxx was not scientifically warranted. It did so in anticipation of these garbage cases. The FDA demanded that Merck put it back on the market.

There were no deaths in the study sample of over 4000 people. There were cardiac events, with differences in rates that were not clinically meaningful. Everyone was taken off their aspirin to prevent the effect of aspirin on the study outcome. Thus, even the rare cardiac events could have been caused by the abstinence from aspirin.

Meanwhile, millions of people on Vioxx had their good care disrupted by the plaintiffs, the land pirates, and their good pals on the bench.

I was furious that Merck took Vioxx off the market. I was furious that they refused to counter-sue, or to file complaints against the biased lawyers on the bench.

Now, you are alleging the plaintiffs have improper motives.

In many ways I am glad that Merck has decided to fight these cases as it forces the junk science of these individual lawsuits into the open. I can't help but remember the suits against Dow chemical for the whole breast implant issue. I would be very interested in someones' take on the Dow cases.

Proving proximate cause in pharma cases often presents dilemmas because you can't always prove 100% causation. But look at the picture: a correlation between highly elevated risk (clinical trials showed that the drug DOUBLED people's risk for heart attack), extensive use of the drug, an occurance of the event in a relatively healthy person, and for the cherry on top, information that the company knew of the risks through clinical trials yet failed to warn patients. If that doesn't smell fishy then your nose don't work.

Am I alleging improper motives of the defendant, Merck? I'm suggesting that the company's avoidance of liability could be a strategic business move, as the Times article implies and as is common in the corporate world. This strategy could be motivated by a sincere belief that there was no wrongdoing on their part, or it could simply be a bottom line assessment. Businesses do this all the time--they know when they'll win the game of litigation chicken and when they won't. And usually they'll win when they're dealing with someone with significantly fewer resources.

The rates were around 2% for cardiac events on placebo, and around 4% on drug. If one applies a statistical correction learned in 11th grade statistics, the statistical significance caused by the large sample sizes disappears.

Who gets Vioxx? Old people. They will have lots of cardiac events. The difference is meaningless clinically and statistically. The disruption of care by the lawsuits and the pulling off the market out of fear of lawyer bullying, that was quite meaningful.

Who should decide whether Vioxx is used? The patients and doctors, after reading a warning label. Period. Not lawyers, not executives.

The billions consumed by litigation represent the research budget of the next blockbuster drug. Beyond the visible damage done by these sleazeball plaintiffs and the land pirates, are the missing benefits from the next missing drug.

Here is what you said, Kia, "...they’re looking for retribution and for a chance to hold pharma company Merck accountable for knowingly concealing evidence that Vioxx causes heart attacks."

You claimed the plaintiffs, not Merck, had improper, retaliatory, scapegoating motives. They did not want to be made whole, because they suffered no damage. Address your assertion of improper motive by the plaintiff side.

I want the DOJ Criminal Division to investigate, and arrest the judges that permitted this unmitigated catastrophe for clinical care. The judges would go to prison based on evidence taken from their decisions. I have zero interest in searching for lawyer gotcha on some collateral, trivial, rule breaking by the judge. I want judges arrested for the crimes against humanity and unauthorized human experimentation represented by their substantive judicial decisions. To deter the hierarchy of the criminal cult enterprise.

You missed the biggest potential act of corruption by Merck. They may have pulled Vioxx of the market using this trivial difference in harmless cardiac events as a pretext. They might have wanted to promote their pending application for approval for son of Vioxx. If that can be proven, Merck hierarchy should join the land pirate hierarchy in Federal prison, at hard labor, not in the country club prisons.

Some facts in Kia’s article are worth considering →
1. Merck has spent more than $1 billion over the last three years in legal fees
Hell that is a lot of money. Isn’t it. And this is only the legal fees. God knows how much will be the total cost of defending
2. Though its stock plunged immediately after the Robert Ernst verdict, it has since risen 80 percent, easily outpacing those of other big drug makers.
Then it speaks nothing bad about that company. It had others avenues for success despite the Vioxx debacle (if we consider there is really one)
3. And, contrary to what some would say, Ernst isn’t looking for any “litigation lottery.”
NO she doesn’t but does she has any idea how much money 253 million is? Yes her lawyer (Lanier) has that idea. Is he better than any CEO
4. “They could have all of their money and everything I own if they would just give him back to me. But they can’t do that.”
His husband is worth just 253 million. Well may be. That’s not going to fetch her husband back either.
5. This is the kind of corporate crime that the civil justice system is supposed to fight against
I am not a big fan of corporations for many reasons To quote Jefferson → "I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."

But what part of a strategy, in your article is a crime is beyond me. If Mark has not settled for a whole sale settlement and is defending on a case by case basis, and has been winning most of them, the vindication comes, at the cost of a fortune per case. They did force their enemy to part with quite a bit of money, even if they didn’t win. Fair-minded people can say that the notion , a losing plaintiff never has to pay , is a crime too. We know what happened in breast implant cases (the lawyer now possesses 900 cars). We know one of the foulest scandal in Washington of tobacco settlements when attorney generals fell over one another to state that thanx to their fine work of the lawyers they got paid 206 billion dollars when Smokers already cover the cost of their bad habit by paying 56 cents per pack . Everybody was conned including the plaintiffs. So it is a no-brainer that a settlement , would make life easier for your lawyer pals on their yachts, and well let’s face it, the crumbs they throw at you supports your livelihood presently. All it all it makes trial lawyer inc. make more believable to the lay people. And Jefferson won’t be their fan either

The real life significance of "statistical significance" manifests in the lives and deaths of people who had heart attacks after taking Vioxx. 4% risk may not seem to be statistically significant to you, but it would have been good information to know. Arthritis pain, heart attack? Hmm... let me pick. At any rate your disagreement is with the clinicians who were actually there testing the drug and consulting the company about its risks. Merck may have disagreed with those doctors too, but Merck was given this information and didn't warn. This is a problem that translates into liability for the deaths that turn out to have actually been caused by use of the drug.

The "old people will have lots of cardiac events" thing is a sweeping generalization based only on your opinion, but if anything it speaks to the additional significance this statistical jump has. More vulnerable population = need for more careful warnings.

I did say "...they’re looking for retribution and for a chance to hold pharma company Merck accountable for knowingly concealing evidence that Vioxx causes heart attacks." Yes, retribution, being made whole, being repayed, getting your just recompense, etc. The death of a loved one due to the deprivation of the right to make an informed choice about risks is the damage, and this is what they were seeking accountability over. I think my meaning was pretty clear. They weren't looking to hit the jackpot, as some would like to say; they were looking to hold Merck accountable for the damage they believe it did, an issue which the courts will decide.

Merck has spent more than $1 billion over the last three years in legal fees. Yes that is a lot of money, even for a company that makes something like $6 billion a year. But the company knows that it can afford to pay this much more easily than the average widow or widower can afford to pay for years and years of dragging out the process. Again, playing chicken.

Does Ernst has any idea how much money 253 million is? Yes her lawyer (Lanier) has that idea. Is he better than any CEO? I'm not prepared to speak to the character of "any CEO" and compare it to Lanier. All I know is there are tons of socially responsible corporate types, as there are good lawyers who defend harmed individuals, but make money in the process. Funny though that the people who have to make bottom line decisions about whether it's profitable or not to risk peoples lives are not nearly as demonized as people who defend injured plaintiffs.

What part of a strategy, in your (the New York Times') article is a crime is beyond me. More than the strategy of playing chicken with individual plaintiffs, the crime is allowing a drug to go out there without taking measures to ensure people are well informed about its risks.

Fair-minded people can say that the notion , a losing plaintiff never has to pay , is a crime too. Fair minded but misinformed, perhaps.

No statistical significance means that there is no correlation between two variables. That is to say the p value is greater than .05. (Basic stats) So your real life manifestation is that there is no relationship. There is a high statistical relationship to taking high risk patients off daliy asprin therapy. This has a p value much below 0.05. Futher, all these studies rely on manova analysis which attempts to show if certain variables are related but not necessary causal. Is it a game of chicken. Of course, plaintiffs want Merck to settle early for something that they can't prove. Merck, has its attorneys and experts on retainer so the costs are highly overestimated. If you want to win your case, make sure that you really have proof or at lease sue for what can be proven.

The real life manifestation is exactly what the clinicians feared and warned Merck about, and it's something that at least one person, Mrs. Ernst, has been able to prove in a court of law. Obviously the Dr.s evaluating the trial test results saw a statistical significance in the data.

The less biased, less bought off FDA doctors surely disagreed with Merck, and demanded Vioxx return to the market.

The Merck doctors forgot the correction factor for the statistical significance arising from trivial differences, and magnified in statistical significance by the huge sample sizes.

Kia, please address the propriety of the motives of the plaintiffs that you cited. You are the one citing vengefulness, scapegoating, and rage overcoming greed as motivation for these suits.

‘The real life manifestation is exactly what the clinicians feared and warned Merck about, and it's something that at least one person, Mrs. Ernst, has been able to prove in a court of law. Obviously the Dr.s evaluating the trial test results saw a statistical significance in the data’

The last time we had seen there was lot of disagreement even among the doctors , for reasons cited by many posters in this issue . And if a 253 million dollar judgement (well 26 million ) on top of millions of legal fees can’t force any company to settle then common sense says that the correlation is not that uptight like say Fen – Phen and Heart failure . They would‘ve settled otherwise. Merck has won and lost some and presumably hopes to keep on doing that . It says nothing about the company. Legal exstablishment regularly touts that , the corporation with its arms and ammunitions , would hardly settle any frivolous case. The corollary is that the settled cases all had merit. At least you listen to that . Oh you don’t . Now tell me what are you going to do . Which part of the system needs ‘reform’ so that Merck can’t play chicken

Merck has spent more than $1 billion over the last three years in legal fees. Yes that is a lot of money, even for a company that makes something like $6 billion a year. But the company knows that it can afford to pay this much more easily than the average widow or widower can afford to pay for years and years of dragging out the process. Again, playing chicken

Don’t we have contingency fee lawyers How much these widows and widowers had to pay upfront to take their cases .And who are these lawyers , someone like Lanier with a 25-acre wooded estate, who brings dolly Parton to sing for him? Sorry , Takes a lot to make me cry.

My 51 year old husband died suddenly after taking VIOXX. (Golfer,swimmer,profressional singer) I was pleased when the jury verdict was in favor of Carol Ernst. At the time of the verdict I felt that if my husband's case never made it to court, that was fine. A jury had shown that Merck did not put product safety before profit. I know my case will be dropped by the attorneys because of the futility of it ever getting on a court docket, or a settlement agreement. It has no profit for the legal profression and they will drop the cases. Just as Merck has planned they will. Congratulations to Mr. Lanier for continuing to represent these cases without any payment for years, possibly never. I hope that in the appeals that the juries will continues to decide in Mrs. Ernst favor. She is the only means any of the rest of us will gain closure that Merck was held responsible for their greed. I do have to admit that with hind sight I wish that we all had realized that the only way to get any monitary retribution from Merck would have been to purchase stock, not file a law suit. Kudos to the legal team of Merck and the court system for allowing this travisty.

At least one person was able to convince a group of people in whom those with scientific and mathematical educations have been removed that the drug caused the cardiac event. They did not prove in 7 of 9 cases where the jury has gone the other way. What the Dr. evaluating the trial found was a nonstatistically significant increase in cardiac events in the group of patients who were on vioxx without aspirin compared to a group of patients who were kept on aspirin. Additionally, another factor that showed high statistical significance was that the Vioxx patients had less pain and were more active than the other cohort. It is well know that someone who is deconditioned because of pain who has limited mobility will have a higher risk of cardiac events once they start exercising. From your take on the Vioxx issue or at least your posting of the related article it would seem that you feel Merck is guilty and not have its day in court. In fact, the article suggests that there are problems in our legal system with a "waiting game that only corporations can afford to play". I agree that there is a problem with our legal system and that we need to reform or tort law to correct it. As this Vioxx thing plays out, I think that it will show how many of the lawsuits agaist it are bogus and to what degree people will try to extort money. Like, breast implants however, there is a race to get all the lawsuits and money before the suits are debunked by science.

Juries are entrusted with deciding whether a person lives or dies or goes to jail, they're entrusted deciding complex fraud cases, and they're entrusted and fully competent to decide cases like this. In cases like this they have been able to come in favor of the Defendant when they deem that the proper verdict, as you point out. Perhaps some of the other considerations you point out applied to those lawsuits in which the plaintiffs lost. But then there are the people who do win on the merits. Should they be denied their judgment, while the plaintiffs who lose are held to the jury's decision?

My take on the Vioxx issue is that clearly multibillion dollar companies have the advantage. Under tort "reform", this advantage is preserved. So when the flaws in our civil justice system become visible, we then still have to ask ourselves what the appropriate fix is. If the proposed fix (via tort "reform") further exacerbates the problem, then it's no good.

Kia: As you know the land pirate has distorted the function of the jury for his rent seeking purposes. The jury had knowledge. They had walked the property boundaries 10 years before. They knew the criminal since childhood, and all his tricks. They knew the carelessness of the parties to a tort. The lawyer has hermetically sealed off all the advantages, so as to abuse them like puppets. No intelligent or experienced will ever get on such a jury.

The trial is a contest of fairy tales, with only the production values making a difference, and not substance. Still, most cases are weak. So say the hobbled juries of this land.

The fix is to make the judge and plaintiff lawyer fully responsible for all damages done to the parties and to this nation. Judges and their employers must pay for their bias, their carelessness, their pro-litigation corruption. Let those who elect these land pirates fight fires with buckets after their fire engines have been auctioned off to compensate the victims of the land pirates they chose to decide on their behalf. It is high time to make the judge and plaintiff tort feasors pay, as everyone else is made to pay. They are not George III, and they do not speak with the voice of God. The victims of these incompetents and corrupt officials must be made whole for once. To deter.

Jan: Your tragedy was that of 500,000 other families. Hundreds lost children to sudden death. Thousands lost teenagers in the prime of life and in good health. Sudden death can happen to any of us, at any time.

You scapegoat Vioxx for your loss without providing any evidence but a time coincidence. All the Vioxx cases are weak due to the simple methodology mistakes made by the Merck leaders. If weak or frivolous cases succeed, effectively, strict liability will spread to pharmaceuticals, where no real proof of causation is needed. So a person 100 years of age dies. They took aspirin that day. Sue Bayer for the wrongful death.

Guess what happens next.

No more meds for you or me.

Strict liability criteria apply far better to the tort lawsuit claim, intended to harm in its usual application. If that can come to pass, guess what happens next. No more tort lawyers to oppress this nation.

Three Major Heart Attacks, Third ended with a seven bypass open heart surgery, and two massive strokes.. I just want to stop being a burden on my family and to stop hurting! I am in pain all of the time and my family has to suffer the most for it!!

Danhy: I am so sorry to hear of your desperate medical situation. Did you ever take Vioxx?