CORRECTED: Vioxx user already had heart problems, court hears

Corrects spelling of name to Pettit, paragraph 7

By Jon Hurdle

ATLANTIC CITY, New Jersey (Reuters) – A lawyer for Merck &
Co. told a jury on Tuesday that a 68-year-old New Jersey
woman’s previous health problems caused her heart attack, not
their painkiller drug Vioxx.

“For someone like Mrs. (Elaine) Doherty, it’s not whether
you are going to have a heart attack. It’s when,” Merck lawyer
Diane Sullivan told the court at the conclusion of the third
Vioxx trial to be heard in Merck’s home state of New Jersey.

Sullivan reminded the five men and two women on the jury
that Doherty led a sedentary life, was obese, suffered from
diabetes, high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol and had a
family history of heart disease. All of these contributed to
her January 2004 heart attack.

But Doherty’s lawyer James Pettit argued that his client
had lost about 100 pounds, how blood pressure and cholesterol
levels had fallen and that it was only “After she got on Vioxx
(that) she was a heart attack waiting to happen.”

Pettit, like plaintiffs’ attorneys in earlier Vioxx trials,
accused Merck of putting profits before safety because it
needed a blockbuster drug to replace other drugs whose patents
were about to expire.

Vioxx annual sales exceeded $2.5 billion during its five
years on the market. Merck withdrew the drug after it was shown
to double the risk of heart attack among those taking it for
more than 18 months.

The company’s traditional emphasis on science was being
overtaken by commerce, Pettit said. “Now it’s not research and
development, it’s marketing, marketing, marketing,” he said.

Jurors are expected to begin deliberations Wednesday
morning.

About 11,500 lawsuits have now been filed in the United
States against Merck by former Vioxx users who say the drug
caused their heart attacks or strokes. The Doherty case is the
seventh contested in court by Merck, which has said it will
fight each one by one.

The company informed doctors, regulators and medical
journals in 2000 after the study showed a far higher risk of
heart attacks among patients taking Vioxx than those taking the
standard painkiller naproxen.

Merck agreed at the time with the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration that the information about Vioxx risks should be
published in the precautions section of the drug’s label.

Merck has won three of the six cases that have so far been
decided in court. In April, another Atlantic City, N.J. jury
awarded $13.5 million to John McDarby, 77, after finding that
Vioxx contributed to his heart attack and Merck failed to warn
of the drug’s risks.

But the same jury concluded that Vioxx did not cause the
heart attack of Thomas Cona, 60, whose suit was heard at the
same time.