Healthy Skepticism Library item: 12425
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Publication type: news
Voreacos D, Davidson LV.
Merck Claim Deadline for $4.85 Billion Vioxx Accord Is Today
Bloomberg 2008 Jan 15
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601202&sid=abZjdiUXQ2Zk&refer=healthcare
Full text:
About 30,000 plaintiffs who sued drugmaker Merck & Co. over its Vioxx painkiller have until the end of the day to register for payouts under a $4.85 billion settlement, the company said.
About half of the 60,800 people who sued have already signed up, plaintiffs’ lawyer Andy Birchfield said. Of those, 29,000 claimed heart attacks and 17,000 claimed strokes. For the deal to take effect, 85 percent of heart attack and stroke claimants must sign up by today’s deadline.
“We expect to meet and exceed the 85 percent threshold,” company spokesman Kent Jarrell said.
Merck and plaintiffs’ attorneys negotiated the settlement to resolve 26,500 lawsuits over claims Vioxx caused cardiovascular injuries before the company withdrew it in 2004. Merck had spent $1.2 billion fighting lawsuits before the accord, winning 11 of 16 cases that went to trial since 2005. Merck said it planned to announce the final registration tally at a court hearing on Jan. 18 in New Orleans federal court.
The leading plaintiffs’ lawyers who filed Vioxx cases must recommend that all of their clients participate under the accord. Those lawyers have traveled around the U.S. explaining the deal since it was announced Nov. 9. Birchfield said he’s met attorneys in cities such as Denver, Houston, Los Angeles and Atlanta.
‘Overwhelmingly Positive’
“The response has been overwhelmingly positive,” said Birchfield, of Montgomery, Alabama.
Merck, based in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, and the plaintiffs’ lawyers stuck an agreement that sets aside $4 billion for heart attack cases and $850 million for stroke cases. The agreement outlines a three-step system for how Brown Greer, a law firm in Richmond, Virginia, will evaluate injuries.
Plaintiffs must prove they actually had a heart attack or stroke, that they took at least 30 Vioxx pills and that they took the medicine within 14 days of their injury. If they pass those three tests, they will enter either the heart attack pool or the stroke fund for further evaluation.
As a compromise by Merck, the settlement doesn’t require plaintiffs to show that Vioxx caused their injury. During the trials, the company always contested the issue of causation.
Another plaintiff’s lawyer who helped negotiate the deal, Ed Blizzard of Houston, said more than 33,000 people had registered electronically with Brown Greer through yesterday. He said he expects most of the 60,800 eligible to register by tomorrow.
‘Last Day’
“It’s always the case that people will wait until the last day,” Blizzard said.
Plaintiffs’ lawyer Mark Lanier said that if lawyers miss today’s registration deadline, he expects U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon in New Orleans to allow clients still to participate in the settlement. Fallon is overseeing thousands of federal Vioxx lawsuits consolidated in his court.
“It will mean that those lawyers’ clients, however, might be the later group paid out ultimately,” said Lanier, a Houston lawyer who won a $253 million jury award from Merck over Vioxx.
The Vioxx accord followed 11 months of secret negotiations prompted by Fallon and state court judges in New Jersey, California and Texas who are overseeing the cases. During their talks, the lawyers met two dozen times in cities including New Orleans, Washington, Atlanta and Memphis.
Merck trails Pfizer Inc. and Johnson & Johnson, the largest and second-largest drug companies.
The case is In re Vioxx Products Liability Litigation, MDL 1657, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana (New Orleans).
