Claim: Merck says thousands file for Vioxx payments.
Verdict: SUPPORTS

Retrieved passages:
title: Merck & Co.
text: market, and it publicly announced the withdrawal on September 30. An analysis for the period 1999-2004, based on U.S. Medical Expenditure Survey data, reported that Vioxx was associated with 46,783 heart attacks, and along with the other popular COX-2 inhibitor Celebrex, an estimated 26,603 deaths from both. About 50,000 people sued Merck, claiming they or their family members had suffered medical problems such as heart attacks or strokes after taking Vioxx. In November 2007, Merck agreed to pay $4.85 billion to settle most of the pending Vioxx lawsuits. The settlement required that claimants provide medical and pharmacy records confirming the

title: Rofecoxib
text: million in punitive damages. The same jury found Merck not liable for the heart attack of 60-year-old Thomas Cona, a second plaintiff in the trial, but was liable for fraud in the sale of the drug to Cona. In March 2010, an Australian class-action lawsuit against Merck ruled that Vioxx doubled the risk of heart attacks, and that Merck had breached the Trade Practices Act by selling a drug which was unfit for sale. By November 2007 Merck announced that it agreed on a mass tort settlement of $4.85 billion between Merck and the lawyers of 27,000 individual lawsuits with

title: Rofecoxib
text: subject include "The Vioxx Litigation: A Critical Look at Trial Tactics, the Tort System, and the Roles of Lawyers in Mass Tort Litigation" and "10 Years of Tort Reform in Texas Bring Fewer Suits, Lower Payouts." In November 2011, Merck announced a civil settlement with the US Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts, and individually with 43 US states and the District of Columbia, to resolve civil claims relating to Vioxx. Under the terms of the settlement, Merck agreed to pay two-thirds of a previously recorded $950 million reserve charge in exchange for release from civil liability. Litigation with

title: Merck & Co.
text: occurrence of a heart attack, ischemic stroke, or sudden cardiac death; the receipt of at least 30 Vioxx pills within 60 days prior to the injury or death; and confirmation of Vioxx being used within 14 days of the Vioxx-related event. The settlement was generally viewed by industry analysts and investors as a victory for Merck, considering that original estimates of Merck's liability reached between $10 billion and $25 billion. In fact, as of mid-2008, when the plaintiff class had reached the threshold percentage required by Merck to go through with the settlement, plaintiffs had prevailed in only three of

title: Merck & Co.
text: the twenty cases that had reached juries, all with relatively small awards.. Merck has refused to consider compensation for Vioxx victims and their families outside the US. This is particularly true in the UK where there are at least 400 victims and the legal protection afforded to the victims and their families is particularly weak. According to internal e-mail traffic released at a later lawsuit, Merck had a list of doctors critical of Vioxx to be "neutralized" or "discredited". "We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live," wrote an employee. A Stanford Medical School professor

title: Merck & Co.
text: rebates to Medicaid and other health care programs and paid illegal remuneration to health care providers. On February 7, 2008 Merck agreed to pay more than $650 million to settle charges that it routinely overbilled Medicaid for its most popular medicines. The settlement was one of the largest pharmaceutical settlements in history. The federal government received more than $360 million, plus 49 states and Washington, DC, received over $290 million. One whistleblower received a $68 million reward. Merck made the settlement without an admission of liability or wrongdoing. Merck & Co. once used methylene chloride, an animal carcinogen on the

title: W. Mark Lanier
text: eventually be sued by thousands of consumers claiming to have suffered heart attacks and strokes because of the drug. Lanier argued that Merck continued to market the drug, despite knowing about its negative side effects. The case was eventually decided in Ernst's favor, with Lanier securing a $253 million verdict. Later, Lanier obtained consumer fraud findings against Merck, who was found to have misled doctors and patients by concealing information about Vioxx and its risks. Lanier has taken on several lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson and DePuy Synthes, which Johnson & Johnson acquired in 1998. The lawsuits allege that DePuy

title: Rofecoxib
text: to operate honestly throughout the process. Any mistakes that were made regarding the mishandling of clinical trial results and withholding of information was the result of oversight, not malicious behavior. The Martin Report did conclude that the Merck's marketing team exaggerated the safety of Vioxx and replaced truthful information with sales tactics. The report was published in February 2006, and Merck was satisfied with the findings of the report and promised to consider the recommendations contained in the Martin Report. By March 2006, there were over 10,000 cases and 190 class actions filed against Merck over adverse cardiovascular events associated

title: Rofecoxib
text: increased risk of heart attack and stroke associated with long-term, high-dosage use. Merck withdrew the drug after disclosures that it withheld information about rofecoxib's risks from doctors and patients for over five years, resulting in between 88,000 and 140,000 cases of serious heart disease. Rofecoxib was one of the most widely used drugs ever to be withdrawn from the market. In the year before withdrawal, Merck had sales revenue of US$2.5 billion from Vioxx. Merck reserved $970 million to pay for its Vioxx-related legal expenses through 2007, and has set aside $4.85bn for legal claims from US citizens. Rofecoxib was

title: Merck & Co.
text: year. Vioxx became one of the most prescribed drugs in history. Thereafter, studies by Merck and by others found an increased risk of heart attack associated with Vioxx use when compared with naproxen. Merck adjusted the labeling of Vioxx to reflect possible cardiovascular risks in 2002. On September 23, 2004, Merck received information about results from a clinical trial it was conducting that included findings of increased risk of heart attacks among Vioxx users who had been using the medication for over eighteen months. On September 28, 2004, Merck notified the FDA that it was voluntarily withdrawing Vioxx from the

title: Merck & Co.
text: said that Merck was engaged in intimidation of researchers and infringement upon academic freedom. On May 20, 2008, Merck settled for $58 million with 30 states alleging that Merck engaged in deceptive marketing tactics to promote Vioxx. All its new television pain-advertisements must be vetted by the Food and Drug Administration and changed or delayed upon request until 2018. In 1987, Merck & Co. began a program with UNICEF to donate its new drug Mectizan to "all that need it for as long as needed" in an effort to combat onchocerciasis, also known as river blindness, primarily in Africa. Up

title: Edward Scolnick
text: market after it was discovered that the drug caused a dangerously high risk of myocardial infarction. Legal claims resulting from this have cost Merck billions. During the five years it was available in the US, more than 38,000 deaths were related to Vioxx use, and up to 25 million Americans took the drug. In the subsequent investigations, it was revealed that it was likely that Merck knew about the adverse effects of the drug, and Scolnick had dismissed them in order to push the drug to market before Bayer's Celebrex. Scolnick began as the founding director of the Stanley Center

title: Merck & Co.
text: issue referred positively to Vioxx. In 2009, the CEO of Elsevier's Health Sciences Division, Michael Hansen, admitted that the practice was "unacceptable". Merck and the Wellcome trust jointly fund the Hilleman Laboratories, an India-based non-profit research organization dedicated to the development of low-cost vaccines for use in developing countries. Current projects include the development of low cost, thermostable vaccines for the prevention of cholera, rotavirus, and meningitis. A US Justice Department fraud investigation began in 2000 when allegations were brought in two separate lawsuits filed by whistleblowers under the False Claims Act. They alleged that Merck failed to pay proper

title: Ed Blizzard
text: billion settlement for women exposed to Dow Corning silicone, establishing himself as a leader in mass tort litigation. Blizzard also negotiated major settlements over diet drugs and Ephedra supplements including products Fen-Phen and Metabolife. In 2007, as part of a six-member committee, he helped to negotiate a $4.85 billion settlement between Merck and nearly 27,000 patients who suffered medical problems while taking Vioxx. For the past several years, Blizzard has been a key member of committees taking on Sulzer Hip Implants, Bayer's Baycol and Bausch & Lomb's ReNu With MoistureLoc. His most recent cases center on AstraZeneca's psychotropic drug, Seroquel.

title: Ted Frank
text: worked on the Vioxx case early in his career, was called "perhaps the loudest critic of the Vioxx litigation," and debated trial lawyer Mark Lanier about the issue. Frank continued his criticism in a 2011 article. "A final sordid chapter in the tort litigation over Vioxx closed, as Judge Eldon Fallon divvied up $315 million to be paid to the plaintiffs' attorneys who worked on the litigation. This sum was in addition to the more than $1.2 billion already paid to such attorneys. When you add in what Merck paid to plaintiffs and for its own attorneys, the Vioxx litigation

title: Rofecoxib
text: risk profiles. Notwithstanding these recommendations, Merck has not returned rofecoxib to the market. In 2005, Merck retained John S. Martin Jr., a former US District Judge for the Southern District of New York and colleagues at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP to investigate Vioxx study results and communications conducted by Merck. Through the report, it was found that Merck's senior management acted in good faith, and that the confusion over the clinical safety of Vioxx was due to the sales team's overzealous behavior. The report that was filed gave a timeline of the events surrounding Vioxx and showed that Merck intended

title: Rofecoxib
text: carried out in older "trusted" NSAIDs such as ibuprofen, diclofenac and others. The possible exceptions may be aspirin and naproxen due to their anti-platelet aggregation properties. Due to the findings of its own APPROVe study, Merck publicly announced its voluntary withdrawal of the drug from the market worldwide on September 30, 2004. In addition to its own studies, on September 23, 2004, Merck apparently received information about new research by the FDA that supported previous findings of increased risk of heart attack among rofecoxib users (Grassley, 2004). FDA analysts estimated that Vioxx caused between 88,000 and 139,000 heart attacks, 30

title: Kenneth Frazier
text: at Drinker Biddle, one of Frazier's clients was Merck & Co., the second-largest drug company in the United States. In 1992, he joined Merck & Co.'s public affairs division as general counsel. Frazier was named senior general counsel in 1999. As general counsel, he was credited with overseeing the company's defense against claims that the anti-inflammatory drug Vioxx had caused heart attacks and strokes. Analysts at the time estimated Merck & Co.'s liability to range from 20 to 50 billion dollars. Frazier said the case was "the most significant challenge [he'd] ever faced." He chose to fight all cases in

title: The Medical Journal of Australia
text: president Brian Owler asking him to review the decision. At a 2009 court case in Australia where Merck & Co. was being sued by a user of Vioxx, the plaintiff alleged that Merck had paid Elsevier to publish the "Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine", which had the appearance of being a peer-reviewed academic journal but in fact contained only articles favourable to Merck drugs. Merck has described the journal as a "complimentary publication", denied claims that articles within it were ghost written by Merck, and stated that the articles were all reprinted from peer-reviewed medical journals. In May

title: Eric Ding
text: together have garnered over 36,000 external citations. He was a whistle-blower in the drug controversy surrounding the safety and risks of the dangerous painkillers Vioxx, Celebrex, and Bextra. Chief corresponding author of a priority JAMA report, he was recognized for his role in "The New York Times". Dr. Ding's key study established that Merck should have known the serious health dangers of Vioxx several years before the drug was pulled off the market, as chronicled in the book "Poison Pills: The Untold Story of the Vioxx Drug Scandal". He was also Chief Health Economist and Director of Epidemiology of Microclinic