Lawyers organise mass suits over Vioxx

Hundreds of plaintiffs’ lawyers who claim that people were injured or killed by the painkiller Vioxx, plan to meet next week to lay the groundwork for a nationwide legal assault against the drug’s maker, Merck. The lawyers expect the discussions to begin informally on Tuesday in Pasadena, California, in the hallways of a conference on Vioxx litigation that will also be open to defence lawyers. On Thursday, at a meeting in Las Vegas for plaintiffs’ lawyers only, those who are suing Merck, or plan to, expect to discuss specific strategies. ‘‘We can’t compete with big pharmaceutical companies by ourselves, but when we get together, we can become formidable,’’ said Daniel E. Becnel Jr, a lawyer in Reserve, Los Angeles, who has led such organisational efforts in other drug cases and in tobacco litigation. Even before Merck withdrew Vioxx from the market on September 30, citing what it said was new evidence that the drug increased the risk of heart attacks, strokes and other serious ailments, hundreds of patients had filed lawsuits around the country. Since then, countless other lawsuits have been brought — no one yet has an accurate figure — and more are expected.

Merck, which has said it withdrew the drug as soon as it had conclusive evidence of unacceptable risk, declined to discuss its defence strategy. This week, the incentives to sue have multiplied. The Food and Drug Administration published a report on its Web site on Tuesday by a staff researcher, concluding that more than 27,000 deaths could be attributed to Vioxx based on comparisons with how patients taking other painkillers had fared.

The Lancet, a respected British medical journal, published an analysis of all the clinical trials of Vioxx completed by 2001, and concluded that Merck and the FDA should have known enough about the drug’s hazards to withdraw it years ago. The plaintiffs’ lawyers plan to compare notes next week on the types of clients who may make the strongest cases, with a premium on people who were in demonstrably good health before taking Vioxx.

The group also intends to discuss ways to cooperate in gathering evidence and expert testimony, and in devising tactics to influence where the bulk of the cases may end up, as state and federal judges consolidate them.

— NYT