Healthy Skepticism Library item: 13699
Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.
Publication type: news
Merck Agrees to Settlement Over Vioxx Ads
The New York Times 2008 May 21
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/21/business/21vioxx.html?_r=2&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin&oref=sloginhttp://
Full text:
The drug maker Merck has agreed to pay $58 million as part of a multistate settlement of accusations that its ads for the once-popular painkiller Vioxx deceptively played down the health risks.
The agreement, announced on Tuesday, also calls for Merck to submit all new television commercials for its drugs to the Food and Drug Administration for review.
The civil settlement ends investigations by 29 states and the District of Columbia into Merck’s advertising practices involving Vioxx, Pennsylvania’s attorney general, Tom Corbett, said.
Vioxx was taken off the market in 2004 after research showed it doubled the risk of heart attacks and strokes. That led to thousands of lawsuits against Merck, based in Whitehouse Station, N.J. A pending $4.85 billion settlement would end the bulk of those personal injury suits.
Thanks to aggressive marketing through direct-to-consumer television ads begun in 1999, hundreds of thousands of consumers demanded Vioxx prescriptions before doctors had a chance to understand the side effects, Mr. Corbett said.
An F.D.A. spokeswoman did not immediately return a telephone message on Tuesday seeking comment.
Merck is not admitting any wrongdoing under the settlement and defended its marketing of Vioxx in a statement on Tuesday.
The agreement calls for Merck to submit all new television commercials for its drugs to the agency for seven years. The F.D.A. is to review them, and Merck is to abide by any changes the agency recommends. For a 10-year period, Merck must also comply with any F.D.A. recommendations to delay television ads for newly approved pain medications.
