Local Widow Files Vioxx Lawsuit

By Melissa Ross
First Coast News

JACKSONVILLE -- A verdict from a Texas jury is giving hope to dozens of Jacksonville famlies suing drug maker Merck over its arthritis medication, Vioxx.

Last week, that jury awarded more than $250 million to a Texas familiy, ruling that the maker of Vioxx was liable for the death of their loved one.

Jacksonville widow Toni Raices says Vioxx killed her husband, too.

"I still cry every night. I've lost my best friend," says Raices, who says her 41-year-old husband, Hector, had slightly clogged arteries but was in otherwise good health when he began taking Vioxx last year for his arthritis.

Raices died of a heart attack last June while playing a basketball game, shortly after going on the drug, his widow says.

She's suing Merck for damages, along with about 20 other area families, says an attorney for the law firm Spohrer, Wilner, Maxwell & Matthews.

"Merck.. failed to listen to the advice of its own scientists," said attorney Woody Wilner.

"They advertised the drug as safe, and it turned out it caused heart attacks and killed people."

Wilner likened the Vioxx controversy to the tobacco litigation of the 1990s, which his firm was also involved in.

Vioxx has been pulled from the market, but Merck maintains the drug has not been proven to cause heart attacks.

Lawyers for the company point out no risks appeared in 58 clinical trials involving 10,000 patients before the drug won approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

Merck's stock took a tumble Monday in the wake of the Texas verdict, and Wilner says pressure on the pharmaceutical giant to settle the Vioxx cases will only continue to mount.

"They fought the Texas case and lost," he said. "Eventually they'll have to do right by all these families." He adds his firm is looking at taking on "hundreds" of Vioxx-related cases.