Vioxx
PER
Vioxx
After a month of testimony, the fourth Vioxx-related personal injury trial ended Monday with well-worn closing arguments from lawyers for Merck and for two men who say the company's drug Vioxx caused their heart attacks. Less than two years after Merck withdrew Vioxx from the market, and eight months after the first Vioxx case reached a verdict, litigation over the drug has settled into something of a groove. In this case, as in the earlier suits, lawyers for Merck insisted that the company fully disclosed Vioxx's potential dangers to regulators and the public. Merck stopped selling Vioxx in 2004 after a clinical trial showed that the drug caused more heart attacks and strokes than a placebo, but Merck says that the study did not reveal a difference in danger for patients who took the drug for less than 18 months.