Court awards claimant $13.5m in rofecoxib lawsuit

doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7547.927-a

BMJ 2006;332:927 (22 April), doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7547.927-a

News

Court awards claimant $13.5m in rofecoxib lawsuit

Janice Hopkins Tanne

New York

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

A jury in New Jersey has awarded $4.5m (£2.6m; ${euro}$ 3.7m) incompensatory damages to a 77 year old man who claimed that rofecoxib(Vioxx) had caused his heart attack. The jury decided that Merck,the maker of the cyclo-oxygenase-2 inhibitor, had deceived theUS Food and Drug Administration about the safety of the drugand awarded the man an additional $9m in punitive damages.

Merck said it had given the FDA all the necessary informationabout rofecoxib and would appeal the ruling.

The jury decided that the heart attack of a second man in thesame trial had not been caused by rofecoxib and awarded himonly the cost of his drugs: $45. The judge, the former malpracticelawyer Carol Higbee, who is overseeing 4500 rofecoxib casesfiled in New Jersey against Merck, has grouped several casestogether.

Merck faces nearly 10 000 cases in the US relating to rofecoxib.. . . [Full text of this article]

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