The Cartwright Law Firm is currently evaluating potential claims of individuals who have taken Vioxx (rofecoxib) and have been diagnosed with a heart attack (myocardial infarction) or stroke while taking that medication. If you or a loved one have taken Vioxx and have suffered from a heart attack or stroke, please call immediately for a free, confidential consultation with one of our firm’s attorneys.

The Cartwright Law Firm was one of the first firms in the world to become involved in Vioxx defective product litigation in June 2001. The firm filed over 250 individual Vioxx defective product personal injury lawsuits in May 2002. As a result of this early involvement in Vioxx litigation, The Cartwright Law Firm has the advantage of having established trial dates for many of its cases, and has an edge on the important legal process of discovery, whereby each side builds its case against the other through the collection of incriminating documents, witness depositions and the testimony of medical experts.

In May 1999, pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. debuted its new “miracle” drug, Vioxx, with much fanfare. Following an accelerated approval process, the Food and Drug Administration approved Merck’s new product Vioxx for use as an alternative to traditional non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) for the treatment of pain suffered by arthritis patients. Merck proclaimed that Vioxx would revolutionize the pharmaceutical market by providing arthritis patients with a medication that would treat their pain in an equal or better manner than the traditional NSAIDs but without causing the gastric problems so frequently encountered by the same patients using the older, traditional drugs.

With the launch of its new “miracle” drug, Merck & Co. spent a record-setting amount of money on advertising these purported benefits of Vioxx. This blockbuster advertising campaign consisted of direct to consumer advertisements, which aired on television and in print, as well as extensive physician “education” efforts wherein Merck sales representatives provided physicians nationwide with abundant quantities of free Vioxx samples and incentives to increase their rates of writing prescriptions for Vioxx instead of other arthritis pain medications. Intricate records were kept by Merck of the exact number of prescriptions each physician wrote for Vioxx, and many doctors were “targeted” by Merck sales representatives with the goal of raising the number of Vioxx scripts written. The depth and breadth of this tremendous advertising and physician “education” effort by Merck is difficult to comprehend in terms of its magnitude. Such an effort was unprecedented in the history of the pharmaceutical industry and put patients at risk.

Further placing patients at risk, Merck omitted critical health safety information from its direct to consumer advertisements, the physician “education” program information, and indeed the product safety leaflets themselves that came with every Vioxx prescription. From the very beginning of its Vioxx development trials, the company had knowledge that Vioxx carried the risk of causing heart attacks and strokes in a significant portion of its users. Instead of disclosing this crucial health information to the public, the medical profession, and even the FDA, Merck intentionally chose to hide the evidence that its “miracle” drug could also cause severe cardiovascular damage or even death in a significant percentage of its targeted users.

On September 30, 2004 Merck finally resigned itself to the reality that the problems with its new drug Vioxx were not going to go away. On this date the drug company announced that it was recalling its blockbuster arthritis medication as a result of recent study results documenting “ an unacceptable number of adverse cardiovascular events.” It is estimated that since its debut in 1999, over 20 million people have taken Vioxx and over four thousand product liability lawsuits have been filed against Merck since the date Vioxx was recalled in 2004.