Merck To Start Issuing Checks In Vioxx Settlement
-courant.com
07/19/2008- Merck & Co. will start cutting checks for former users of its withdrawn painkiller Vioxx next month after announcing Thursday that it will fund a $4.85 billion settlement expected to resolve roughly 50,000 lawsuits. More>>>

Merck to pay $58M in Vioxx settlement
- Boston Business Journal
05/21/2008- Drug company Merck & Co. Inc., which has a large employment presence in Massachusetts, will pay $58 million to Massachusetts, 28 other states and the District of Columbia to settle lawsuits claiming Merck allegedly used deceptive marketing tactics for painkiller Vioxx. More>>>

Thomas McGarity: Safeguard lawsuits that potentially save lives
-dallasnews.com
05/10/2008- A report recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association should be deeply troubling to the millions of Americans who have taken the blockbuster painkiller Vioxx. The article demonstrated that many of the published scientific studies used to establish the drug’s safety and efficacy had been “ghostwritten” by the manufacturer. More>>>

Killer Drug: Company hid deaths from regulator
-enews
04/24/2008- Drug manufacturer Merck knew one of its drugs was killing Alzheimer’s patients – but hid the fact from regulators for several years. The drug, the COX-2 painkiller Vioxx (rofecoxib), was finally taken off the market in 2004 after it was found to cause heart attack.  More>>>

Merck downplayed death risk of Vioxx: study
Recall of painkiller biggest in history
-Mike Segar/Reuters
04/20/2008- A new study suggests that drug maker Merck manipulated data about the drug Vioxx. The drug's 2004 recall was the largest in history. More>>>

Vital Vioxx Details 'Manipulated'
-WebMD
4/15/2008 - Two studies appearing in Tuesday's Journal of the American Medical Association have prompted the journal's editors to call for "drastic action" to prevent drug companies from misrepresenting data from clinical trials. More>>>

Top 10 Deadliest Drugs
InjuryBoard.com

04/08/2008-In 1988, the AIDS activist group ACT UP staged a protest that led to a dramatic change in the US Food and Drug Adminstration (FDA) drug approval process. Previously, the drug approval process was slow, bureaucratic and unresponsive to patients who were desperately ill and might not live to see a drug approved. By 1995, the process became streamlined and dying patients with no other options were given early access to promising medications. Drugs that were granted “priority review” status saw the approval times drop from just under three years to as little as six months. More>>>