THE drug company Merck had a cardiologist sign his name to a medical journal article it wrote claiming there was no evidence of any heart risk attached to its drug Vioxx, court documents allegedly show.
In an internal email in August 2001 to discuss a draft of the manuscript, a Merck senior researcher, Briggs Morrison, expressed concern about the claim that Vioxx was not associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular events.
"That seems wishful thinking, not a critical interpretation of the data," Dr Morrison said in an email to colleagues. "The data appears to have been interpreted to support a pre-conceived hypothesis."
The claim was nonetheless included in the final version of the article, which was sent by Merck to the US cardiologist Dr Marvin Konstam for approval.
Dr Konstam was named as the lead author of the article, published in the medical journal Circulation in October 2001. Five of the authors were Merck employees and the other two, including Dr Konstam, were paid consultants.
The email was tendered to the Federal Court yesterday as part of a class action on behalf of every Australian who had cardiovascular conditions after completing at least one prescription of Vioxx between June 30, 1999 and its worldwide recall in 2004. The class action, which includes more than 1000 people, alleges Merck covered up a higher risk of cardiovascular conditions.
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