Rauch said Merck could be trying to limit unfavorable publicity by avoiding trials where patients have the strongest cases, and also may hope to show most Vioxx users who had heart attacks or strokes had risk factors such as obesity, tobacco use, high blood pressure or cholesterol, or family history of heart disease. That's likely, he said, given that most Vioxx users were older people likely to have such conditions.
"If they [Merck] can come and get no one to settle with because everyone's got a risk factor, then they can say, by itself, Vioxx does not cause heart attacks," Rauch said.
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