Vioxx may have killed 55,000 people

[Guest guest]

> http://www.salon.com/opinion/huffington/2004/11/25/vioxx/

>

> Bad medicine

> There ought to be a special place in hell for

> companies like drug giant Merck, whose painkiller

> Vioxx may have killed 55,000 people.

>

> - - - - - - - - - - - -

>

> By Arianna Huffington

>

> Nov. 25, 2004 | As Democrats continue to search

> heaven and earth for a moral values issue they

> can call their own, I have just the prescription:

> Why not start with the immoral behavior of giant

> drug companies such as Merck that continue to

> sacrifice the health of the public on the altar

> of higher and higher profits?

>

> According to last week's Senate testimony by Dr.

> David Graham, associate director for science and

> medicine in the FDA's Office of Drug Safety, as

> many as 55,000 patients may have died as a result

> of taking Vioxx. Shocking. But not to Merck,

> which had spent hundreds of millions of dollars

> convincing Americans to take its blockbuster pain

> pill even though the company's own studies showed

> that it greatly increased the risk of heart

> attacks and strokes.

>

> If Democrats want to appeal to voters who believe

> in promoting what the president calls " a culture

> of life, " they should make it a priority to put

> an end to the kind of corporate behavior that

> promotes a culture of death.

>

> Merck's actions throughout the entire Vioxx

> affair have been utterly despicable. When the

> company pulled the drug off the market in

> September, CEO Raymond Gilmartin claimed that the

> scientific findings that led to the withdrawal

> were " unexpected. " Which is like releasing a

> ravenous wolf into a pen full of sheep then

> acting surprised that lamb chops are on the menu.

> Because recently uncovered internal Merck

> documents show that as far back as 1998 -- a year

> before the drug was even approved by the FDA --

> the drug giant had evidence indicating that Vioxx

> was a potential killer.

>

> But instead of going back to the drawing board,

> the company made the heart-stopping decision to

> push ahead -- using every weapon in its

> well-funded arsenal to put off regulators, rope

> in consumers, and keep the bad news from

> surfacing. They did a masterful job, turning

> Vioxx into a commercial elixir: Last year alone,

> sales of the drug totaled $2.5 billion. It was a

> huge success. Unless you were one of the people

> who had to be sacrificed for it.

>

> Merck's CEO also claimed that the company's

> handling of Vioxx showed it was " really putting

> patient safety first. " Which it definitely did --

> if by " first " he meant right after profits and

> Merck's stock price.

>

> Indeed, those internal documents reveal that

> nothing in the Merck corporate hierarchy was more

> important than covering the company's backside.

> One offers an " obstacle handling guide " for " all

> field personnel with responsibility for Vioxx. "

> Another is titled " Dodge Ball Vioxx " and suggests

> ways Merck salespeople can deal with troubling

> questions raised by doctors concerned with the

> safety of Vioxx. The final four pages of the

> manual each contain a single instruction:

> " DODGE! " (I wonder if Ben Stiller has heard about

> this? I smell sequel!)

>

> Merck also exhibited a rare gift for putting

> negative findings into a positive light. When one

> scientific study found that Vioxx, while indeed

> multiplying the risk of cardiovascular

> complications, caused fewer digestive side

> effects than other pain relief drugs, the company

> strong-armed the FDA into displaying the good

> news about fewer upset stomachs more prominently

> on the drug's label than that pesky stuff about

> more heart attacks. I'm surprised they didn't try

> to turn this tidbit into a TV ad: " Sure Vioxx can

> increase your chances of cardiac arrest, but at

> least you won't have an upset tummy when it kills

> you! "

>

> Speaking of ads, the most loathsome aspect of the

> whole Vioxx affair is the way Merck used a $500

> million marketing campaign to persuade over 20

> million Americans to pop its noxious little pill.

> And company executives continued to run these ads

> long after they knew that there was big trouble

> brewing. I'm sure that our evangelical friends in

> the red states will agree that there ought to be

> a special place in hell for corporations that

> show such a wanton disregard for human life.

>

> And if any of this sounds familiar, it should.

> It's certainly giving me a profound sense of drug

> company déjà vu, with the tragic stories of

> Baycol, Rezulin and Duract still fresh in my

> mind. How many times do we have to travel down

> this deadly path -- the side of the road littered

> with bodies and the empty containers of drugs

> that were approved despite serious questions, and

> left on the market despite growing evidence of

> innocent lives being lost?

>

> And after each case come the inevitable calls for

> accountability and promises to reform the system

> -- promises that are then forgotten until the

> next killer drug hits the headlines.

>

> During last week's hearings on the Vioxx scandal,

> Dr. Graham, while citing an additional five drugs

> that he feels pose a danger to the public, said

> that the nation's compromised drug oversight

> system had left Americans " virtually defenseless "

> against killer drugs and warned that we are

> facing " the single greatest drug safety

> catastrophe in the history of this country or the

> history of the world. "

>

> And you thought our biggest problem with

> pharmaceuticals was President Bush refusing to

> allow us to get cheap drugs from Canada. Which he

> laughably justifies because of concerns about the

> safety of Canadian drugs.

>

> So why don't things ever change, even as the

> death toll mounts? As always, the answer can be

> found by following the money. The big

> pharmaceutical companies continue to be the

> 800-pound gorillas of American politics -- their

> power stemming from a muscular combination of

> lobbying ($150 million a year), campaign

> contributions (close to $50 million doled out to

> federal candidates over the past four years) and

> powerful friends in very high places (Donald

> Rumsfeld was formerly CEO of drug industry

> powerhouse G.D. Searle, and Mitch Daniels, the

> former White House budget director and new

> governor-elect of Indiana, was a senior vice

> president at Eli Lilly).

>

> In a 2000 e-mail, Merck's chief of research

> called Vioxx's propensity to cause heart attacks

> and strokes " a shame. " Something his company

> clearly lacks. Of course, the real shame is that

> we continue to have a regulatory system in which

> corporate greed, political timidity and a culture

> of cronyism have rendered the public good a

> quaint afterthought.

>

> Sen. Charles Grassley, the conservative

> Republican who chairs the Senate Finance

> Committee that held the Vioxx hearings, lambasted

> the FDA for being " under the thumb " of the very

> pharmaceutical companies it is supposed to

> regulate, saying the agency " has a relationship

> with the drug companies that is too cozy. " Are

> Democrats going to sit by while conservatives

> like Grassley take the moral lead on this issue?

>

> If the Democratic Party is serious about

> reclaiming the moral values high ground, it needs

> to stop trying to figure out how to triangulate

> on gay marriage and take a long hard look in the

> medicine chest mirror. Then open it up, let fly

> with the proper moral outrage, and start cleaning

> out the mess that lies inside. It's time for

> Democrats to become the real pro-life party.

>

> salon.com

>

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