Merck - Vioxx: A statement

While I ordinarily would not be inclined to respond to blog postings, I wanted to point out that there was an inaccuracy in the reporting of the testimony of a witness, Dr. Nancy Santanello, a Merck scientist who testified in a VIOXX trial in Madison County, Illinois. Some reports cited only part of her quotes.

The purpose of this posting is to quote her public testimony correctly.

Dr. Santanello was asked about some of the many studies the company undertook regarding the medicine and said, according to the court transcript, "I think you need to look at the product long-term if you're going to use it in the long-term and so, therefore, I think you need longer term studies which I know we did."Unfortunately, some reports left off the second half of the sentence.

As Dr. Santanello effectively made clear in her testimony, VIOXX was one of the most studied drugs ever, before the FDA approved it as safe and effective. Merck continued to study VIOXX and then when the APPROVe study showed a potential long-term risk, the company informed the FDA it was going to pull the medication from the market because that would be in the best interest of patients.

Kent Jarrell - spokesman for Merck’s Outside Counsel in the VIOXX litigation.

Insider's view:

Thanks Kent.

Now we are "in dialogue".

Perhaps you would care to comment on this.

Or maybe not!