Poor Merck. Thursday August 17th 2006 was a very bad day for the company and their lawyers' "trial by trial" Vioxx defence strategy.First of all they lost a federal case in The Big Easy.
Then, to cap it all, NJ state judge Carol Higbee threw out a previous victory for Merck and ordered a new trial for a postal worker who blamed his heart attack on taking the company's Vioxx pain medicine for two months.
The company said it might appeal that ruling.
Superior Court Judge Higbee ruled that evidence uncovered since the November verdict revealed that Merck withheld information showing heart attacks could come with use of Vioxx for less than 18 months, said the plaintiff's lawyer, Christopher Seeger.
''Merck consistently said throughout the trial that you had to be on Vioxx for 18 months to be at increased risk of a heart attack,'' Seeger said.
''And that was false. They had data that people were having heart attacks within weeks.''
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