New poster,been lurking for years.I know many think this is a greedy grab by lawyers but I work with one of the 10 firms on the steering commitee on the vioxx and this is not a drug that is worth your support. I can't name names but one of the cases I personally have worked on is an 19 year old who had a heart attack after being on vioxx for 6 months.He was on vioxx due to back fusion surgery that made him 100% disabled.He is a non smoker with NO history of heart problems in his family.Mock many lawsuits but their are many like this one that simply can't be explained away.Legitimate cases should not be ignored.
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 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.
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.
What kind of shape would your 19-year-old be in if he'd been taking massive doses of aspirin for 6 months?
Bleeding stomach ulcers perhaps?
And are you sure he didn't have a pre-existing heart condition? It's not unknown, you know.
I guess you wanted a piece of the pie too. How about working for your money, scumbag. RINO. DUmmy.
Just popped over here from DU huh
I'll bet you think abestos cases are have merit too. It is people like you and your trial lawyer buddies that are ruining this country.
Given the number of people in the world, it is highly likely that ANY medication will cause harm to a group of them. That doesn't mean that anyone is at fault. Sometimes stuff happens. If a medication is so toxic that it is harming large percentages of those who take it, then it is a bad drug.
Oh, BS! You may be working in a money-grabbing, ambulance chasing, John Edwards-clone legal firm...but that gives you ZERO credibility on this.
Look, pal, I worked in the development and launch of this product. The persons who actually created this medication are my friends and former coworkers. All medications have side effects.
Allegations by the Edwards-like legal forces hold no water. There was no cover-up, there was no intent and there is really little difference between any of the cox-2 drugs.
And, yes, I'm biased...because (despite no longer working there) I do still bleed Merck teal.
How do you weigh quality of life (100% disabled by the pain you said?) - vs heart attack? I know I would take my choice to be pain free for as long as it lasted, and be grateful for it.
The Cox-2 inhibitor class is a powerful class of medications, and any powerful pill is going to have adverse events. That said, the cardiovascular and thrombotic AEs for Vioxx were clearly noted in the Vioxx prescribing information with statistics demonstrating an elevated risk for both relative to Naproxen. Taking those 2 facts together, anyone who gives the "who knew" argument is full of weapons-grade bologna.
What happened to the patient in the case you cite is unfortunate, but the number of truly unexpected severe AEs is substantially outweighed by the benefit many more patients received form the medication. Honestly, I would guess that one would have a higher probability of being killed in a car crash than suffering the type of AE you described with Vioxx as the undisputed causative agent. I would hazard that the larger problem is that patients assume that "it'll never happen to me" or are frustrated that they cannot use the channel flicker to tune out their physician when he/she is trying to explain the risks of a medication.
As an aside, I also think that Merck is being penalized for doing the right thing, ie, pulling the drug. It is worth noting that Pfizer declined to pull Celebrex, which has a near-identical mechanism of action and carries similar risks. I guess they weren't as easy a target for the parasites, I mean trial lawyers.