Blame game: Second Vioxx suit goes to trial in New Jersey

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) - Jurors hearing a product liability case against drug maker Merck & Co. on Wednesday heard starkly different assertions about whether the company's blockbuster painkiller Vioxx was to blame for an Idaho man's heart attack in 2001.

Lawyers for Boise postal worker Frederick Humeston told them that the New Jersey company rushed the product onto the market and ignored evidence of problems with some patients.

The company knew 18 months before that that Vioxx could increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes, but didn't warn doctors or users about it, according to attorney Chris Seeger. He told a seven-woman three-man jury in opening statements that the company violated founder George Merck's mantra: "Merck is for people, not profits."

Merck lawyer Diane Sullivan denied the allegations on both counts, telling jurors Merck's witnesses would prove Vioxx had nothing to do with Humeston's heart attack and that the company researched the drug's effects and reported the problems when it found out about them.

She told them the testimony in the case would be thick with medical and scientific terms and that they would be the ones to sift through it.

"You folks are going to be like detectives, like 'CSI,' where you test the allegations they've made against the evidence," Sullivan said.

The trial, one of about 2,475 Vioxx lawsuits pending in New Jersey, is the first since a Texas jury found Merck responsible for the death of a Vioxx user and ordered a $253 million award. That amount is expected to be dramatically reduced because of a Texas law capping punitive damages in civil cases.

Seeger said his client, a 60-year-old Vietnam veteran who survived his heart attack, would not have been prescribed Vioxx if the company was more forthcoming about its problems.

"Did they issue a 'Dear Doctor' letter? No. Did they warn patients? No, they didn't do that either. Did they change the label? No, they didn't," he said.

Under pressure to introduce new drugs because its patents on others were about to expire, Merck cut its customary new-drug development time in half, threw a $1 million party for 3,500 sales associates to launch it and spending $100 million on consumer advertising, Seeger told the jury.

"The survival of the company" was on the line at the time of the drug's 1999 debut, he said.

But Sullivan said the Whitehouse Station-based company had published studies about safety risks and notified the Food and Drug Administration of their findings.

Merck's scientists were keenly interested in potential safety concerns about the drug, she said, showing jurors a copy of a 2001 e-mail message from the company's research chief, Edward Scolnick, written after a study showed an increased risk of cardiovascular complications for those taking the drug for more than 18 months.

"I was sick at the thought we were doing harm to patients," Scolnick wrote.

"For you to believe the plaintiff's case, you'd have to believe that all these people got together and did something sinister," Sullivan told the jury.

Humeston limped into the courthouse Wednesday morning, holding hands with his wife Mary and favoring the damaged knee that earned him a Purple Heart and later prompted his doctor to recommend Vioxx.

The doctor, Gregory Lewer, testified that the 6-foot-1 Humeston had almost none of the risk factors normally associated with heart attack victims in their mid-50s.

His blood pressure and cholesterol were normal, his arteries were clear and he didn't smoke, said Lewer, a close friend who went whitewater rafting and hiking with Humeston. The man's only real ailment was the knee injury, said Lewer. Humeston was overweight but never obese, he added.

Lewer was to return to the stand Thursday morning, after which Seeger planned to air videotaped testimony by Dr. Alan Nies, an expert witness.

WKRC 12 Cincinnati