Drug firm ‘in deadly cover-up’
17/4/08
A drug company has been accused of misrepresenting data on the safety of a top-selling arthritis drug and persuading academics to lend their names to medical studies that were ghostwritten for them. Two papers in the Journal of the American Medical Association accuse Merck of questionable practices over its drug, Vioxx (rofecoxib), now withdrawn from sale. A University of Washington in Seattle team reported that Merck had not fully disclosed the death rates in trials in which Vioxx was tested in Alzheimer’s patients after there was some evidence to suggest drugs of the Vioxx type could slow progression of the disease.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23552135-23289,00.html