Posted on 08/19/2005 7:50:18 PM PDT by Diddle E. Squat
ANGLETON — A few of the jurors on the nation's first civil suit against pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co., over its painkiller Vioxx talked about their decision today.
They awarded the widow of Robert Ernst, who died after taking Vioxx, $253.4 million in damages.
The seven-man, five-woman jury deliberated for 10½ hours over two days before returning the verdict in a 10-2 vote.
Ten of the 12 jurors concurred with Carol Ernst's contention that the Vioxx was responsible for her husband's death.
Juror Derrick Chizer, who voted for Ernst, said the 10 like-minded jurors believed a heart attack triggered the Texas man's fatal arrhythmia.
"It could have been prevented," Chizer, 43, said. "That is the message (to pharmaceutical companies): Respect us."
But juror James Fruindenberg, one of the two who voted for Merck, said he "couldn't go with the probabilities" of what caused Robert Ernst's death.
"I think there are a lot of good people there who care," he said of Merck.
The jury at a glance
The breakdown of the jury includes a 53-year-old homemaker, who was the forewoman and the oldest of the dozen jurors. The panel was composed mostly of working-class people either in their 20s or 40s.
It included a service representative for a government agency, a technician for a chemical company, a construction worker, a product technician for a sales and rental store, a secretary, an electrician and child care provider.
Seven jurors had only high school educations, while two went to college for two years and one for four. The other two didn't indicate where their education stopped.
Six jury members were in their 40s and five in their 20s. Ten were white, one was black and one was Hispanic.
Another article said that the award will automatically be knocked down to about $25 million, thanks to Texas' recently passed cap on punitive damages.
No college grads = Big plaintiff's verdict.
Why not make it 200 BILLION? What the heck?
Two words: tort reform.
Not saying how I would have voted. Not knowing the evidence, I assume like the rest of you (perhaps wrongly) that having had FDA approval, the drug company did nothing egregious. But knowing the legal system, I also know the drug company put on the best defense money could buy. I know big firm defense lawyers, I am one, and I have no reason to believe the jurors couldn't cut through the snowjob from all the high priced attorneys.
All the talk show hosts are mocking jurors today. Who do jurors protect us from? lawyers and judges. If you find jurors (common people) distasteful, you have not had much experience with judges.
This is not a case for the "jury" system. All drug companies market their drugs. It is called capitalism.
where was the FDA? As soon as there were "problems" possible, the FDA should pull the drug ( which Merck did) and review the clinical info. If you think that all those thousands of people that died were the cause of Vioxx, hardly reasonable. And don't think that the relatively short time the drug was on the market Merck recouped their research investment, you hardly know about drug production.
Again...very simple, pull the drug, have the FDA review it..leave it off the market...The DRug company will be punished and our durg and insurance prices won't go up with an endless stream of greedy people and greedy lawyers.
This is crap. Reduce the award to $1 and move on.
I am watching the cnbc show on this topic as we speak. Merck did market the drug as you say, and did not highlight the negatives in their marketing. (Who does?) The FDA challenged Merck on this and they stopped the over-positive marketing. They also never tried to cover up studies that showed an increase in heart attacks when tested against Naprosin (Advil). Merck argued that the drug Naprosin may have offered heart benefits similar to aspirin that made it out perform vioxx. Of course they thought that vioxx did more for the relief of pain. Which is where their case goes. Now, letting over 4 thousand heart attack victims who also happened to take vioxx sounds to me like a very putative thing to do to a drug company. You claim:
Because of Vioxx more than 100k people suffered sever cardio-vascular trauma, up to and including death, the drug industry can't market risky drugs like consumer goods products. They create confusion.
I submit that there are a lot of similarities between people with a risk of a heart attack and people with a risk of pain in their joints. (In both cases these people are called "the elderly".) I might agree with you about how marketing is done. Maybe a neutral marketing system has to be found that is more "consumer" oriented. I don't want to see a company like Merck wiped out by this legal approach to "social justice". What happens to the drug business if you "kill the goose with the golden egg".
The company did not properly inform doctors of the risks associate with Vioxx.... The evidence against Merck is strong.
CEO's of all the major drug producers agree.
The make-up of the jury, Democrat or Republican is irrelevant. Merck is responsible for the facts of the case.
You sound like an ambulance chaser.
I'm certain that the doctors & scientist at Merck were trying to help people with their medical problems and not make a killing in profits by killing people.
What exactly is it that the, "CEO's of all the major drug producers agree." about?
I totally disagree that the makeup of the jury was irrelevent. It's actually key. Democrats in general are classic redistributionist and they don't let the facts of the case get in the way. I know from experience, in the jury room.
Here's a little more info for the curious, taken from here:
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/articles/0,15114,1096299,00.html?promoid=yahoo
"What makes the verdict so punishing for Merck is that Bob Ernst died, according to his autopsy, from a heart arrhythmia, rather than from a heart attack. While there are unquestionably studies that suggest that Vioxx increases the risk of heart attacks (due to blood clots in coronary arteries), there are no published studies linking it to arrhythmias. In fact, many plaintiffs' lawyers have routinely been turning away arrhythmia cases, and several had tried to persuade Mark Lanier, the lawyer who represents Carol Ernst, not to let this case be the first, he told FORTUNE in an interview in July. But Lanier argued to the jury that Ernst probably had died of a heart attack, and that the heart attack is what had caused the arrhythmia. His experts argued that the coroner who performed the autopsy had not been able to detect the heart attack because Ernst had died so quickly, and the clot had either dissolved or dislodged during the unsuccessful emergency resuscitation procedures."
Uh, because the size of award speaks for itself. 254.3 million for a death that may, or may not, have been caused by the drug? Nuts. How many of the jurors that came up with this figure do you suppose actually considered the complexity of the issue?
You can just see the anger building in the mind of these easily manipulable bumpkins in this legal backwater as the slick shyster pushed their emotional buttons. What do you bet every potential juror with half a brain was excluded in jury selection?
Check your own six.
For example, everyone worries about doctors' insurance premiums. But prior to more aggressive malpractice cases, bad doctors were committing horrible abuses. Indeed, many still are.
Not saying there isn't a need fort tort reform, but there is not a need to insulate companies from their mistakes or wrongdoing.
Speak for yourself.
Sorry...I call BS when I see and hear it...not 6 months ago a group was asking why we took so long to approve drugs for the populace...ya can't have it both ways.
And they were all young, too. Couldn't have anybody on that panel that knew what it was to have arthritis.
I happen to be practically the only member of my family that is not plagued by "Arthur", and my relatives who are are in agony because anything that works to reduce the pain ends up removed from the market in consequence of just this sort of legal shark attack.
Talk to your doctor about taking this drug. Side effects may include upset stomach, diarrhea, kidney failure, stroke, and heart attack.
Vioxx should have been advertised truthfully!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.