First Vioxx civil trial winds down in Texas

ANGLETON, Texas (Reuters) - Arguments in the first civil trial against pharmaceutical company Merck & Co.'s painkiller Vioxx are expected to end next week, lawyers for the company and the plaintiff said on Friday.

The trial, pitting the family of a Texas man against New Jersey-based Merck, has lasted about a month and is the first of thousands of civil suits claiming the company hid the risks of the drug.

Members of Merck's legal team and plaintiff's lawyer Mark Lanier said they expected closing arguments in the case to begin on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Merck pulled the drug off the market in September when it said it became aware the drug increases users' risk of heart attack and stroke.

The crux of the case in Angleton, a small town about 30 miles south of Houston, is whether 59-year-old Robert Ernst died of a heart attack, and whether he had been on the drug long enough to raise his risk of cardiac problems.

An autopsy report attributed Ernst's sudden death in 2001 to a heart arrhythmia, but the doctor who authored that report testified that she believed he had suffered a heart attack.

Merck has argued that there was no evidence Ernst suffered a heart attack, and that he took the drug for only a few months, far short of the 18 months' usage that studies have said raised risks for serious health affects.

Vioxx is the trade name for rofecoxib, part of a class of drugs called NSAIDs. It was touted as a pain and inflammation reliever that did not cause ulcers or gastrointestinal bleeding, a side effect of many such medications.