Merck and the Vioxx saga

"The Vioxx saga continues. Nearly eight years after Merck withdrew the controversial painkiller over links to heart attacks and strokes, a new paper indicates the drugmaker hid evidence that Vioxx tripled the risk of cardiovascular death for more than three years before taking the pill off the market in 2004. During the same period, the paper in the American Heart Journal notes, Merck had regularly insisted such an increased did not exist."
Read article at pharmalot.com

Pfizer involved in deception over new arthritis painkiller drug Celebrex

"A research director for Pfizer was positively buoyant after reading that an important medical conference had just featured a study claiming that the new arthritis drug Celebrex was safer on the stomach than more established drugs. “They swallowed our story, hook, line and sinker,” he wrote in an e-mail to a colleague. The truth was that Celebrex was no better at protecting the stomach from serious complications than other drugs. It appeared that way only because Pfizer and its partner, Pharmacia, presented the results from the first six months of a yearlong study rather than the whole thing."
Read article in the New York Times (USA)

Really I don't think arthritis painkilling drugs are worth the candle. They've done a great deal of harm over the years. See my posts about Vioxx, for example.

You can reduce the pain of osteoarthritis by the simple expedient of seriously cutting down on salt and salty food. This dietary measure also lowers high blood pressure, reduces your risk of heart attack, stroke, depression, fractures, some cancers and many other degenerative illnesses, as well as reducing excess weight caused by fluid retention and helping with breathing problems. - What's not to like? - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Pfizer Research Scandal: FDA debars fraudster doctor, Scott Reuben

He was accused of faking research for a dozen years in published studies suggesting after-surgery benefits from Vioxx and Celebrex. Last year, he was sentenced to six months in jail plus three years supervised release after pleading guilty to fraud. The former chief of acute pain at Baystate Medical Center received grants from various drugmakers but never performed the studies, fabricated patient data and submitted info to journals that was unwittingly published. Now, the FDA has permanently debarring [sic] him from providing services in any capacity to a person that has an approved or pending drug product application, according to the debarment order, which was published today in The Federal Register.
Read article at pharmalot.com

Personally, I favour avoiding painkillers. - I've had two major operations and I refused painkillers for both of them. Yes, it hurts a lot when you come round from the anaesthetic, but you know the pain will gradually get less severe and you can steel yourself to cope with it. But with painkillers - especially the 'strong' ones - there are always adverse side-effects. And, as in this case, you cannot be sure that you have been given the facts about drugs. Drug companies indulge in criminality, including bribing key opinion leaders such as Scott Reuben was, to recommend their drugs, falsifying drug trial data, corrupting medical journals, etc. Painkiller drugs in particular seem to be problematic. The most recently publicised settlement for criminality of a drug company of which I am aware is the Merck/Vioxx scandal reported on the BBC News website last Tuesday. (Vioxx was a prescription painkiller.) Sadly, although Merck have had to pay almost $1bn (£640m) in settlement, this will not deter them from their criminal practices. That huge sum is insignificant in comparison to the colossal profits they garner from the sales of their dangerous products. Criminals, in my opinion - criminals whose crimes destroy the lives and health and happiness of millions of innocent people the world over - should be punished with the utmost rigour of the law, and that should, of course, mean imprisonment for the people at the top of the company, the people who instigate, fund and perpetuate the criminality.

UK Government declines to help Vioxx victims in their legal fight with drug company, Merck.

Read this Timesonline report.

I have written many times about the problems with the painkiller, Vioxx. If you click on the Vioxx tag in the Labels list that is at the end of this post, you will find my previous posts about it.

A drug-free way to reduce chronic pain that many people have found helpful is to avoid or cut down on salt and salty food. If you suffer from pain and would prefer not to take drugs, you may like to give it a try.

Australian Nurses were paid by drug firm to help find patients to be targeted to take anti-arthritis drug Vioxx

Australian marketing staff from pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co paid specialist nurses half-a-million dollars to "hunt" through patient records for potential candidates for their blockbuster anti-arthritis drug Vioxx. The Federal Court was told the company aimed to identify 100 patients of each targeted general practitioner who were not taking Vioxx and could be recommended to take up the drug for their condition. Known as the "bone and joint care program", the marketing initiative employed nurses to go through patients' records with permission of their general practitioner.
Read article in The Australian (Australia)

More about Merck and its drug, Vioxx

Merck had a cardiologist sign his name to a medical journal article Merck had written claiming there was no evidence of any heart risk attached to its drug Vioxx, court documents allegedly show.
Read article in the Brisbane Times (Australia)

Vioxx manufacturer Merck and Co drew up a hit list of doctors to discredit

Drug company, Merck, made a hit list of doctors who had to be "neutralised" or discredited because they criticised the anti-arthritis drug the pharmaceutical company produced. Staff at US company Merck &Co emailed each other about the list of doctors - mainly researchers and academics - who had been negative about the drug Vioxx or about Merck. "We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live," a Merck employee wrote, according to an email excerpt read to the court by Julian Burnside QC, acting for the plaintiff.
Read article in The Australian (Australia)

Further study findings about Vioxx adverse side-effects

Study: Vioxx risk lingered after use of painkiller
A doubled risk of heart attack, stroke and death persisted at least a year after people stopped taking withdrawn painkiller Vioxx, according to an analysis of long-term data from the study that led drugmaker Merck & Co. to stop selling the drug.
Read Associated Press news report at google.com

Merck Pays $58M To States Settle Vioxx Fraud

The drugmaker reached the deal with attorneys general from 29 states and the Washington DC to "fully resolve" investigations under state consumer protection laws related to marketing the notorious Vioxx painkiller. The agreement also calls for Merck to adhere to unspecified compliance measures that are supposed to supplement exisiting practices.
Read article at pharmalot.com

Ghostwriters, guest authors re. Vioxx and rofecoxib

So you thought all those Vioxx studies in medical journals were independent, hands-off affairs? Not necessarily. An examination of medical journal articles about Vioxx and court documents from Vioxx lawsuits found that Merck employees or ghostwriters were frequently involved in various articles, but the primary authors were often academics who actually had little to do with the studies or didn't always disclose financial ties to Merck.
Read article at pharmalot.com

An examination of medical articles about rofecoxib (a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug) and court documents from litigation related to this product indicates that company employees or other unacknowledged authors were frequently involved in writing clinical trial articles and review articles, but that primary authorship was often attributed to academically affiliated investigators who may have had little to do with the study, or who did not always disclose financial support from the sponsor of the study, according to an article in the April 16 issue of JAMA.
Read article at physorg.com

Britons are excluded from US Vioxx painkiller drug compensation

Britons excluded from US drug compensation

Extract from Guardian:

"Merck, the US pharmaceutical giant, is to continue battling with hundreds of British claimants over its failed arthritis painkiller, Vioxx, in spite of agreeing yesterday to a settlement with US residents.

Merck agreed a $4.85bn (£2.42 bn) settlement, one of the biggest in history, with US claimants who blamed the drug for heart attacks and other side-effects.

But the company said this would not apply to British lawsuits or others round the world suing for compensation."

Painkillers for arthritis have caused severe adverse side-effects for many people over the years. - If you want to lessen the pain of osteoarthritis without the use of prescribed drugs, try the completely safe way of avoiding eating salt/sodium and salty food. - See Sodium in foods and
Associated health conditions

Arthritis? Osteoarthritis? Worried about using painkillers?

You may have become a concerned because there has been a lot of bad publicity about painkillers used for arthritis - Vioxx, for instance, or Prexige, or Ibuprofen or Aspirin.

If you are in pain from arthritis and would prefer not to risk adverse side-effects from painkillers, or if, like me, you have a philosophical or a rational objection to taking painkillers because you have found them useless and would prefer to try to address the cause of the pain rather than the symptom, then you may like to try cutting down on your salt/sodium intake. - This is not a frivolous suggestion; eating less salt reduces a lot of - possibly most - pain. - See Pain and other conditions that can be improved by cutting down on salt

Cutting down on salt also reduces fluid retention, and therefore reduces excess weight. This in itself could make your arthritis easier to cope with.

Slow down the aging process and lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Another arthritis painkiller - Prexige - made by Novartis - has caused fatalities

Doctors warned over arthritis drug after two die in Australia - Guardian

Extracts:

"Health campaigners last night urged doctors to be wary of prescribing an arthritis drug after concerns over its safety and an order to ban it in Australia following reports of liver damage. UK and European drug regulators are reviewing the safety data on the painkiller, Prexige, after eight cases of serious liver damage in Australia, including two fatalities.

There are concerns because Prexige is in the same class of drugs as Vioxx, the painkiller withdrawn worldwide in 2004 after being linked to heart attacks and strokes."

"In the UK approximately 5,400 patients have received one or more prescriptions for Prexige, made by the drugs company Novartis, in the last year.

Vioxx, which was manufactured by a separate drugs company, Merck, was used by 84 million patients worldwide, 400,000 of them in Britain. It was withdrawn after trials suggested it might nearly double the risk of heart attacks and strokes.

The class of drugs which includes Prexige and Vioxx is known as Cox-2 selective inhibitors. They are a relatively new type of anti-inflammatory medicine which is thought to produce fewer gastro-intestinal side effects than older non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, which include ibuprofen. Since the Vioxx crisis they have been under surveillance by medicines watchdogs."

Cutting down on salt and salty food is helpful for reducing the pain of osteoarthritis and has many other health benefits too. - See conditions that can be helped by eating less salt

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.