Fighting back tears, a heart expert told jurors that Vioxx manufacturer Merck & Co. ignored evidence the painkiller posed safety risks before it hit the market in 1999.
Dr. Benedict Lucchesi, who was testifying Friday on behalf of a man who blames Vioxx for his heart attack, was shown a series of internal Merck e-mails. Lucchesi, an expert on the heart and the effects of medications, appeared to fight back tears after plaintiff's attorney Chris Seeger referred to a 1997 message sent by Merck researcher Briggs Morrison to fellow company scientists.
In it, Morrison -- discussing the proposed design of an upcoming clinical trial of the drug -- advocated letting the patients in the study take aspirin at the same time as Vioxx.
"I know this has been discussed to death but real world is everyone is on it so why exclude" aspirin, Morrison wrote. Without aspirin's blood-thinning effects, he wrote, "you will get more [dangerous blood clots] and kill drug."
Lucchesi interpreted the statement to mean Merck feared that without aspirin to offset Vioxx's cardiac risk, those participating in the trial would be in greater danger and that would spell trouble for Merck as it pushed to debut Vioxx.
"When I first read that, I personally became enraged," said Lucchesi, 72, a professor at the University of Michigan who helped develop the first pacemaker.
"In my notes," he told Seeger, "I substituted `patients' for `drug.'"
Choked up, he paused in his testimony.
"These are my colleagues," he said, meaning fellow doctors.
"Do you think they're doing something wrong?" Seeger asked.
"They're putting profits before life," he replied.
Merck's attorneys, defending the company in a product liability suit brought by 60-year-old Boise, Idaho postal worker Frederick Humeston, didn't get the chance to cross-examine Lucchesi, who spent about six hours on the stand Friday.
Jim Fitzpatrick, a Merck spokesman who was in court for the testimony, said afterward that Lucchesi had misinterpreted the e-mail. He said Morrison would rebut it when he testifies as part of Merck's case later in the trial.
"What the e-mail referred to is that if you compare Vioxx to a traditional pain reliever, you'll see a difference in clotting events. What he meant was that a misinterpretation of that difference would kill the drug," Fitzpatrick said. "That e-mail was speculating that people would misinterpret it [the trial] as being a problem with Vioxx."
The testimony, in the third day of the product liability trial, came after Humeston's lawyer showed jurors evidence that Merck & Co. was told by its own experts about potential health risks of its painkiller Vioxx before it went on sale in 1999.
In a 1998 document, Merck's board of scientific advisers told the company that Vioxx and other Cox-2 inhibitors -- painkillers meant to limit stomach bleeding and irritation -- could lead to blood clots breaking loose and blocking blood vessels elsewhere in some patients, the plaintiff's lawyer told jurors.
Vioxx could create rupture-prone plaque in arteries and lead to insufficient blood flow to the heart, according to the document. It said the findings weren't conclusive but should be "taken as a basis for hypotheses that should be actively pursued."
Seeger also showed jurors a 1999 letter in which Dr. John Oates, a Vanderbilt University pharmacology professor and Merck consultant, told Merck's research chief the drugs could cause dangerous blood clots in some patients.
Lucchesi's testimony is to continue tomorrow, followed by Merck's cross-examination.
Merck, based in Whitehouse Station, withdrew Vioxx from the market last September after its own research showed the popular arthritis drug doubled risk of heart attack and stroke after 18 months' use. The drug giant faces more than 5,000 lawsuits filed in state and federal courts -- about half of them in New Jersey state courts -- by former Vioxx users alleging the medicine harmed them.
The first trial ended last month when the jury in the Texas case stunned Merck with a US$253 million liability verdict, although that will be slashed to about US$26 million because Texas caps punitive damages. Merck plans to appeal. Lucchesi testified against Merck in that trial.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last