Healthy Skepticism Library item: 17532

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: Journal Article

Moynihan R
Australian court findings on Vioxx may have global ramifications
BMJ 2010 Mar 16; 340:c1485
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/340/mar16_3/c1485

Abstract:

A court in Melbourne has ruled that the anti-arthritis drug rofecoxib (Vioxx) increased the risk of heart attack, while finding that the Australian subsidiary of its manufacturer engaged in negligent and misleading behaviour.

In a class action judgment delivered earlier this month, the federal court judge Christopher Jessup found that rofecoxib contributed to the heart attack of plaintiff Graeme Peterson.

The judge ruled that Merck Sharp & Dohme “fell short” of what was required in the reasonable discharge of its “duty of care” by failing to warn Mr Peterson’s doctor of the drug’s potential cardiac risk and because sales representatives overemphasised its safety.

He also ruled that the drug was not of “merchantable quality” and that, because “Vioxx involved about a doubling of the risk of heart attack, it was not reasonably fit for the purpose of being used for the relief of arthritic pain” (www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/FCA/2010/180.html).

The class…