Fractured femur did not heal; in hospital/nursing home for 8 months. Devastating economic and personal damage. Also had a failed spinal operation from result of taking Vioxx. Note that several operations were all successful when Vioxx was not introduced onto the market, yet when I began taking it, major healing problems resulted with at the time, no surgeons understanding why that would happen.
Also, there are issues of Fosamax and broken femurs. I strongly feel that my broken femur was from Fosamax, and Fosamax can also affect bone healing by stopping the normal process of bone regeneration.
Merck did not admit that its Vioxx drug not only created cardiovascular issues, but it has an extremely negative impact on bone-spine healing. Literature by major scientific institutes, surgeons, hospitals, etc. have converged that cox-2 inhibitors do indeed damage (and usually even stop) bone-spine healing. Merck knew this issue as far back as 1998 (via internal emails), yet chose to ignore it and market the drug anyway.
As a result, estimates can easily show 50,000 people have been very negatively affected with orthopedic surgery which failed and/or fractures which did not heal. Do a google on "vioxx bone healing" and one will see what I mean. Merck STILL refuses to take a position on this or even acknowledge the potential - they have successfully hidden the problem for years so that it would not affect sales/high incremental profits and as a result, thousands and thousands including myself have suffered major damage.
