As reported by Reuters, the plaintiff’s attorney in the Rio Grande City, South Texas Vioxx trial told the jury that Merck knew about the risks of its pain drug Vioxx and failed to warn doctors and consumers when it brought the drug to market in 1999.
The family contends that Leonel Garza’s fatal heart attack was caused by Vioxx, which he stopped taking three weeks before he died, and that Merck did not warn him or his doctors of the risk.
Three previous Vioxx trials ended in one victory for each side and one mistrial. Merck’s loss came in Angleton, Texas, where a jury returned a $253 million verdict against the company. Merck is appealing.
Merck’s attorneys say the company acted responsibly in working with the Food and Drug Administration to develop Vioxx and in pulling the drug from the market in September 2004 after a study showed increased heart risk in some long-term users.
By Cary O’Reilly
Bloomberg News
Merck & Co. Inc. knew about the risks of its pain drug Vioxx and failed to warn doctors and consumers when it brought the drug to market in 1999, an attorney for a heart attack victim’s family told jurors in Texas yesterday.
Joe Escobedo, an attorney for the family of Leonel Garza, who died of a heart attack in 2001, opened the fourth Vioxx product-liability trial yesterday by telling the jury in Rio Grande City that e-mail and other documents show Merck knew in 1996 that the drug was linked to increased heart attack risk.
Merck, which has major operations in the Philadelphia area, had five drugs that were to lose patent protection in 2000 and needed a new product to help offset the lost sales, Escobedo said. The company ignored studies pointing to heart risks and designed others to put Vioxx in the best possible light, he said.
“The evidence will be that Merck cared more about whether Vioxx lived than whether patients lived,” Escobedo told the jury in his opening statement. David Hockema, another plaintiffs’ atttorney, said Tuesday during jury selection that the family would ask for $1 billion in punitive damages.
The family contends that Garza’s fatal heart attack was caused by Vioxx, which he stopped taking three weeks before he died, and that Merck did not warn him or his doctors of the risk. The trial is expected to last about six weeks.
Three previous Vioxx trials ended in one victory for each side and one mistrial. Merck’s loss came in Angleton, Texas, where a jury returned a $253 million verdict against the company. Merck is appealing.
Merck’s attorneys say the company acted responsibly in working with the Food and Drug Administration to develop Vioxx and in pulling the drug from the market in September 2004 after a study showed increased heart risk in some long-term users.
“Garza’s heart disease caused death, not Vioxx,” said Richard Josephson, a lawyer with Baker Botts in Houston and the lead attorney for Merck.
Garza’s heart disease was first diagnosed in 1978, according to court records. He had his first heart attack in 1981, and in 1985 he underwent quadruple-bypass surgery. He continued to have clogging in his arteries, and, in 1998, had a stent inserted to treat the condition.
In March 2001, Garza went to his doctor and was given a seven-day sample of Vioxx. He died on April 21 that year. Josephson said in his opening statement that Garza had not taken Vioxx long enough to be at risk and that the drug was out of his system when he died.
“He had been off the drugs for weeks” at the time of his death, Josephson said, adding that there is no evidence Garza received any more Vioxx after his seven-day sample.
Attorneys for Garza’s family said he got a 30-day supply of Vioxx from another doctor and was taking it at the time of his death.
Escobedo said Merck’s efforts to rush the product to market when it knew the danger meant the company should be held liable for the harm it caused.
Drugs can cause more harm than other products, he said.
“If something goes wrong with a computer, all it’s going to do is freeze,” Escobedo told the jury. “If something goes wrong with a drug, it is far more serious.”
Merck scientist Nancy Santanello, a key figure in the Angleton case, was called as the first witness by the plaintiffs. She testified that the company performed numerous studies on the safety of Vioxx, even as it hurried to bring it to market.
Santanello said she was familiar with the company’s efforts to get Vioxx approved quickly. A normal review of a drug takes 10 months, and Merck asked for and received a six-month review from the FDA for Vioxx, she said.
