Vioxx Trial Proceeds
January 23, 2006 09:29

Linda A. Johnson, Associated Press, Boston Globe, 1/18/06
Vioxx Lawyers to Question Journal Editors "A current editor and former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, which last month criticized drug maker Merck & Co. for withholding data from a published study on its withdrawn painkiller Vioxx, will be grilled next week by the company's lawyers. The depositions, ahead of the next round of product liability trials over Merck's former blockbuster arthritis pill, will be held next Tuesday and Wednesday, Paul Shaw, an attorney representing the editors, said Wednesday. The depositions are to center on a December editorial in the journal, one of the world's most respected medical publications, that said Merck concealed three heart attacks suffered by patients in a large study published in the journal in November 2000. Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based Merck has said those heart attacks happened after the study's cut-off date for side effects, but journal editors say such data is routinely added until a study's publication. The editorial also alleges the study's authors deleted some relevant data before submitting their article."