Heart doc says Vioxx may have caused heart attack

By Jon Hurdle

ATLANTIC CITY, New Jersey (Reuters) – The cardiologist for
a man who sued Merck & Co. Inc., blaming Vioxx for his 2001
heart attack, testified on Thursday that the withdrawn
painkiller and not heart disease was likely responsible.

Dr. David Sim, an Idaho cardiologist who has treated
plaintiff Frederick “Mike” Humeston since his heart attack,
said he was able to eliminate many of the most common high risk
factors for causing a heart attack.

“He had a paucity of risk factors for having an event,”
said Sim at the second Vioxx trial in testimony provided
through video deposition.

Sim said Humeston was not a smoker, nor a diabetic; that he
did not have high blood pressure or abnormally high cholesterol
levels; that he was not obese and did not appear to have a
family history of heart disease.

“It appears that there was very likely something else going
on in his case that caused him to have this event,” Sim said.

Asked if there were any potential medication-related
reasons that might have caused the heart attack, Sim said: “The
drug that was potentially relevant for Mr. Humeston was Vioxx.”

A spokesman for Merck was not immediately available to
comment on Thursday’s testimony.

Sim said tests performed on Humeston after what he called a
“moderate” size heart attack indicated that the heart was not
diseased.

“It did not look like he had generalized coronary
atherosclerosis,” said Sim, who added that Humeston’s heart has
suffered diminished pumping efficiency since the attack.

Merck contends that Humeston only took the drug
intermittently for two months and that his age, weight and
other medical factors led to his heart attack — not Vioxx.

Humeston charges that Merck long hid the risks of Vioxx in
an effort to preserve sales of its multibillion-dollar drug —
a contention expected to resurface in thousands of pending
Vioxx lawsuits.

The drugmaker has said it pulled the arthritis drug from
the market last September as soon as it had definitive evidence
that long-term use doubled heart attack and stroke risks.

The Atlantic City trial is being closely watched following
Merck’s defeat last month in Texas in the first Vioxx lawsuit
to go to trial.

A Texas jury in August found Merck negligent in the death
of a man who died of heart arrhythmia after taking Vioxx and
awarded $253 million to his widow — an award expected to be
reduced and a verdict Merck has said it would appeal.

Roughly half of the 5,000 Vioxx cases Merck faces have been
filed in New Jersey, home to many pharmaceutical companies,
including Merck.