Bextra Lawsuits

The timing of this announcment is interesting, and probably intended to help reduce attention to the announcement, since Merck had just removed Vioxx, another Cox-2 drug (the same class of medicines as Bextra), because Merck's APPROVe study (Adenomatous Polyp Prevention on VIOXX ) showed that the risk of heart attacks doubled for patients who had taken Vioxx 18 months or longer. Bextra lawsuits are sure to follow the same path we are now seeing with Vioxx.

In its release, Pfizer cited a study of 1,500 patients who had bypass surgery and thereafter and had taken Bextra intravenously and orally. This comes as no shock to the plaintiffs, since the latest numbers indicate that thousands of lawsuits have been filed in the case of Vioxx and it is likely that there will be thousands of Bextra lawsuits as well. While Pfizer claims that there is no evidence that Bextra and Celebrex have problems similar to Vioxx because they are chemically different, Bextra and Celebrex both inhibit Cox-2 which may have an effect upon blood clot prevention. Our review of this comes to quite a different conclusion. The evidence will be put forth in the courts where the Bextra lawsuits are litigated.

Dr. Garret A. FitzGerald, a University of Pennsylvania cardiologist and pharmacologist, "criticized Pfizer for not making this latest information public more quickly since the company had completed the study in the spring. Pfizer said it could not have released this information earlier because it had to analyze the information" according the Times article.

Do I have a case?