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Jury Deadlocks in Houston Vioxx Trial

December 12, 2005

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The first federal Vioxx case ended in a mistrial after jurors deadlocked over whether the Merck painkiller caused the death of a Houston man in 2001.

The mistrial came just days after the New England Journal of Medicine said that data about three Vioxx patients who suffered heart attacks was removed from a Merck-sponsored study, making the painkiller look safer than it should have.

The case was filed by Evelyn Irvin Plunkett, who charged that her husband, Richard "Dicky" Irvin, had suffered a fatal heart attack after taking Vioxx for less than a month. Her case had been considered weak and the mistrail was therefore seen as a setback for Merck.

Vioxx was used by more than 20 million Americans before it was withdrawn from the market in 2004 after being linked to heart attacks and strokes in patients taking it for 18 months or longer.

The judge said he would reschedule the trial for next year in New Orleans. The case was moved to Houston because of Hurricane Katrina.

Merck lost its first Vioxx personal injury case in August. A Texas jury found the company negligent in the death of Robert Ernst, a 59-year-old triathlete who used Vioxx, awarding the man's widow $24 million in actual damages, plus $229 million in punitive damages, for a total of about $253 million.

Merck won its second case last month in Atlantic City, N.J.

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