Merck agrees to $58M settlement over Vioxx ad claims [View All]

Source: AP

(snip)
Another provision of the settlement bars the company from "ghostwriting," a practice in which academic scientists were allegedly paid to take credit for positive research articles prepared by company-hired medical writers.

The civil settlement ends a joint three-year investigation by 29 states and the District of Columbia into Merck's advertising practices involving Vioxx, Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett said.



Vioxx was taken off the market in 2004 after research showed it doubled the risk of heart attacks and strokes. That triggered thousands of lawsuits against Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based Merck. A pending $4.85 billion settlement would end the bulk of those personal injury suits.

Thanks to aggressive marketing through direct-to-consumer television ads begun in 1999, hundreds of thousands of consumers demanded Vioxx prescriptions before doctors had a chance to understand the side effects, Corbett said.

(snip)


Read more: http://money.excite.com/jsp/nw/nwdt_rt_top.jsp?news_id=ap-d90pjrno0&

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Oh, those innocent doctors were preyed on by the consumers.
Boy that wording bugs me. They were handing out Vioxx for menstrual cramps, for god's sake.