Accidental Vioxx Deaths & Vioxx Class-Action Suits

“Accidental” Vioxx Deaths During Research Studies

October 14th, 2005
by Christy Patrick

Even though the number of Vioxx users that died during research studies was triple the number who died on placebos, researchers did not worry because many of the deaths were “accidental”.

Researcher Saw No Vioxx Warning Sign;
Merck Official Says Deaths Were From a Variety of Causes
The Associated Press ATLANTIC CITY - A lawyer for the Idaho postal worker who blames Vioxx for his September 2001 heart attack grilled a Merck & Co. researcher Wednesday about why the company did not alert doctors over deaths among certain Vioxx users five months earlier. In Vioxx’s second product-liability trial, attorney David Buchanan questioned researcher Dr. Alise Reicin about death rates of people in clinical studies meant to see if Vioxx could also be used to treat Alzheimer’s disease. While three times as many Vioxx users in those studies died than people taking placebos, or inactive pills, Reicin said some Vioxx users died from accidents, and rates of cardiovascular trouble were the same among the two groups. “We didn’t view it as a safety signal because the deaths were so different,” she testified. Buchanan represents Frederick Humeston, 60, who suffered a heart attack in his Boise home four years ago after taking Vioxx intermittently for two months to ease lingering knee pain. Merck, which in August was hit with a multimillion-dollar verdict when it lost a Vioxx trial in Texas, says Humeston’s job stress and health risks, not Vioxx, caused his heart attack. The company faces thousands more such lawsuits. Reicin said some Vioxx users in the Alzheimer’s studies died after they stopped taking the drug, while others died of pneumonia, car crashes and other accidents, according to Merck data. Full Story




Breakdown of Vioxx suits
September 4th, 2005 by Nancy Callahan

Here’s a breakdown of the Vioxx-related suits filed so far:

• More than 5,000 product liability lawsuits, nearly all of them personal injury lawsuits, have been filed against Merck. They include:
• 1,811 federal lawsuits consolidated for pretrial coordination to streamline steps common to the cases, such as document gathering and witness depositions.
• More than 290 federal lawsuits pending but not yet consolidated with the others in what’s called multidistrict litigation
• More than 250 cases pending in California state courts.
• About 2,475 cases pending and coordinated under one judge in Atlantic County, New Jersey.
• More than 200 cases pending in state courts elsewhere.

The above categories include 148 potential class-action cases, which could eventually include many plaintiffs if judges certify them as class actions. A handful of those cases involve union health plans, insurers and other third-party payers to seek reimbursement of money they paid for Vioxx for their prescription plan members. One such class action suit filed by a New Jersey union has been certified.

Free your mind, man!

Have you seen the TV commercial for Paxil? There is a woman running through a field of flowers and pills are falling from the sky. She is saying something about how Paxil gave her life back to her.

Sounds like the hippies of the 60's, eh? Free your mind, man!

Feels like the government stole our view of drugs, told us, "no, no, that's not good for you" and then applied what they stole to their drugs. They don't want to legalize street drugs because there is no money in it for them, but if they outlaw street drugs and produce 'pharmaceuticals' they can charge an arm and a leg, legally, by convincing us that we need them.

They didn't just want a cut, they wanted to own the market.

3 Dead Infants, 2 Hours of Insomnia = 1 Great Film Idea

This post has been hi-jacked from adisen, who is actively shattering the rose-colored glasses we see through, be sure to visit her.

3 Dead Infants

Reading the news from Ontario that three infants, all two months old, died in January from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) was so disturbing. It was my biggest fear when my children were infants. I just can’t imagine the grief those parents must be feeling. What makes this story newsworthy is the fact that the Coroner’s office that is investigating these deaths has found that all three infants had been vaccinated in the two weeks before their deaths. According to the story, no link has been made between the vaccines and the deaths, however. (big surprise!) 2 Hours of Insomnia As I was laying awake, pondering the fact that a ten-pound, two-month old infant who’s immune system is not even close to being fully developed, receives two (three in the US) vaccines that contain nine viruses and diseases, I wondered how any immune system could be expected to fight all those bugs without having some kind of negative reaction.In most Canadian provinces and U.S. states, the vaccine schedule is the same: at two, four and six months of age the baby is given two needles containing active ingredients that are meant to produce antibodies that will protect the infant from: diphtheria (a disease of the skin, nose and throat) pertussis (whooping cough) tetanus (lock jaw) polio HIB (haemophilus influenza type B) pneumonia influenza meningitis infections of the bloodstream and infections of the middle ear Hepatitis B For the vaccine to work, the body must react to the disease in some way, to create the desired antibodies that are supposed to provide immunity. That is a lot of work for a very small body that is still only partially developed in terms of its immune, digestive, neurological, sensory, (etc., etc.), systems! Admittedly, I’m not a doctor, but I know that I sure wouldn’t want to be fighting polio, pneumonia and meningitis at the same time. (Not to mention fighting the effects from and the elimination of the poisons used to preserve the viruses!) 1 New Film Idea So here’s the crazy idea. We should do a documentary film about the most high-profile vaccine supporters, from doctors to journalists, health policy-makers to vaccine manufacturers, military seniors to the executive directors of pro-vaccine charities. They all claim vaccines are, if not entirely safe, so safe that risk of an adverse vaccine reaction is one in a million (the most repeated stat around vaccinations that ever there was.) I would like to get them on record making their assertions of safety. And then, I’d like them to put their own immune systems where their mouths are: to sit down, roll up their sleeves and take the same vaccinations given to our infants – BUT – adjusted for their weight. So, a 150 pound doctor would receive 15 needles-full of each of the shots given to the two-month old. And then they’d get the same 15 needles again two and four months later. Kind of a Super-Size for vaccines. Anyone who wants to help out on this project is welcome to contact me. It will be a great film! We just need to find the funding, maybe an unrestricted educational grant from Merck? We should look into it…