Case Against Vioxx Maker Could Go to Jurors Today
Aug. 17–ANGLETON — Closing arguments are scheduled to begin this morning in the first trial of almost 4,300 lawsuits alleging that patients were harmed by the once-popular painkiller Vioxx.
If all goes according to schedule, a jury of seven men and five women should start deciding this afternoon whether pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. is to blame for the 2001 sudden death of 59-year-old Robert Ernst.
Ernst, a Wal-Mart assistant produce manager from Keene, 300 miles north of Angleton near Fort Worth, died in his sleep May 6, 2001.
By all accounts Ernst was in very good shape for a man his age. He ran marathons and taught fitness classes, and eight days before he died, he and his widow rode their tandem bicycle in a 62-mile race.
Merck contends that he died of arrythmia, or an irregular heartbeat, caused by severe hardening of his coronary arteries.
The company withdrew the drug from the market in September after a long-term study showed Vioxx could cause increased risk of heart attacks and strokes in patients who took it for more than 18 months.
Ernst attorney Mark Lanier contends that the increased danger for patients began much sooner. Ernst took the drug for about eight months to ease pain in his hands.
Lanier said Merck pushed the drug onto the market too soon to reap profits of up to $2.5 billion a year. About 20 million people took Vioxx.
Merck witnesses claimed Vioxx was one of the most tested drugs in history when it went on sale in 1999. It was an important drug because it caused many fewer stomach problems than other painkillers of its type.
Experts put on the witness stand during the more than five-week-long trial said Vioxx could have caused Ernst to have a heart attack that wasn’t detected because he died so soon, that he might have had a blood clot that wasn’t seen in his autopsy or that the drug caused his fatal arrythmia.
It will be up to the jury to decide which set of facts to believe.
In a 12-page charge of the jury, state district Judge Ben Hardin instructed them to answer as many as six questions.
The first question asks whether “there was a defect in the marketing of Vioxx at the time it left the possession of Merck & Co. Inc. that was a producing cause of the death of Bob Ernst?”
Another asks “was there a design defect” in Vioxx that caused Ernst’s death?
A third asks “did the negligence, if any, of Merck & Co. Inc. proximately cause the death of Bob Ernst?”
If the jury finds that Merck was at fault in Ernst’s death, a series of subquestions asks how much the company should pay for various kinds of damages. Included in damages is loss of companionship and society to widow Carol Ernst, as well as her mental anguish.
If the jury finds that Ernst’s death resulted from malice by Merck, it will decide what punitive damages, if any, the company must pay.
In rebuttal testimony Tuesday, pharmacology professor Dr. Benedict Lucchesi said Vioxx caused Ernst’s death because it caused a blood clot that, in turn, caused his heart to stop.
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