Attorney accuses Merck of concealing information about Vioxx's dangers

• Inc. knew its painkiller Vioxx increased the risk of heart attacks and failed to inform doctors and the public in order to protect profits, an attorney for a man who blames the withdrawn drug for his 2001 heart attack told jurors on Tuesday.
• In his closing argument, Christopher Seeger, lead attorney for the plaintiff in the second Vioxx case to go to trial, accused Merck of concealing evidence that the drug was associated with a rate of heart attacks five times higher than for from another common pain reliever, naproxen.
• The jury began deliberating on Tuesday afternoon after receiving instructions from the judge.
• Merck had said it believed naproxen had heart protective qualities which accounted for the difference in heart attacks seen with Vioxx in a study conducted years before the one that led Merck to pull the Vioxx from the market last year.
• Seeger, in closing arguments lasting almost two and a half hours, rejected claims by the company that Vioxx did not cause the rupture of plaque in a coronary artery of his client, 60-year-old postal worker Frederick Humeston, that triggered the heart attack.
• Using an animated slide of a coronary artery to illustrate his point, he argued that the drug inhibits the formation of prostacyclin -- a substance that prevents the formation of blood clots -- which in turn lead to heart attacks.
• Vioxx had annual revenue of $2.5 billion before it was pulled from the market after a study last year showed long-term use doubled the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
• "Merck calculated cardiovascular warnings would cost the company 50 percent of its profits through 2006," Seeger said, referring to labeling on the drug the company declined to provide.