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Congress Probes Merck's Vioxx Sales Tactics

Merck Ousts Its CEO; Italians File Class Action

May 6, 2005
A Congressional committee dug into Merck & Co.'s marketing practices yesterday, trying to determine whether the company's sales representatives misled doctors about the health risks of Vioxx, the pain killer withdrawn from the market last September.

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While the House Government Reform Committee was grilling Merck executives, the company's CEO, Raymond Gilmartin, was being shown the door. And in Chicago, a law firm said it will file "the first class action lawsuit on behalf of all Italian citizens who allegedly died or were seriously injured" by Vioxx.

The Senate has held numerous hearings on the Vioxx matter but yesterday's House session produced a mound of internal Merck documents not previously seen. Among them were written guidelines for "detailers," the sales representatives who visit doctors to promote drug company's products.

Merck's detailers were instructed to make eye contact with doctors while firmly shaking their hand. More significantly, when doctors asked about Vioxx' increasing the risk of heart attack and stroke, the detailers were instructed to give them a pamphlet written by Merck's marketing department.

The pamphlet claimed that Vioxx was eight times safer for heart patients than similar painkillers. It omitted Merck's only findings that Vioxx produced a fivefold increase in heart attack and stroke risk compared with naproxen, another popular pain killer.

On the other hand, Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), who chairs the panel, said that a "wide-awake" physician would have known of the increased risks, which had been disclosed in a Merck press release and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

A New Direction?

Merck's new chief executive, insider Richard T. Clark, said he wants Merck to become a "growth company" once again. Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis all grew larger than Merck during Gilmartin's tenure.

Among the headaches Clark has inherited are the thousands of personal injury and wrongful death suits filed against Merck by Vioxx users and the loss of $2.5 billion in annual Vioxx sales.

Italian Job

Arriving late at the Vioxx class action ball, a Chicago law firm says it will file a class action lawsuit on behalf of all Italians who died or were injured by Vioxx.

"Vioxx should never have been marketed in the first place, in light of the known risks of Cox-2 inhibitors," said attorney Kenneth B. Moll. The representation of Italian consumers was undertaken in cooperation with CODACONS, the non-profit organization established by Italian law with a mandate to safeguard consumers.

The lawsuit seeks the establishment of a medical monitoring fund to pay for the testing of Italian consumers for dangerous side effects of Vioxx.

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