Clark, Perdue & List's Blog

If you use painkillers, you should know that Merck & Co.'s experimental painkiller, Arcoxia, may carry the same risk of heart attack and stroke as Vioxx. Vioxx was pulled from the market on September 30, 2004, as a result of increased risk of adverse cardiovascular events, including heart attacks and strokes.
A review of clinical trials published in today's Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) confirms the risks associated with Vioxx. Moreover, the studies suggest that Arcoxia (a drug designed by Merck to succeed Vioxx) has similar risks as Vioxx. Arcoxia has not yet received FDA approval.

Following the removal of Vioxx from the market, Dr. David Graham, a physician with the FDA's Office of Surveillance and Epidemiology, testified that "Vioxx has been a disaster. This is unparalleled in the history of the United States."

In an editorial pubished in JAMA today, Dr. Graham noted that "the FDA, academia, and the medical research enterprise are once again faced with the opportunity to forsake common sense by willfully accepting misdirection and disinformation presented in the guise of science."

View the entire editorial at http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/296.13.jed60058v1