"We try to remember that medicine is for the patient. We try never to forget that medicine is for the people. It is not for the profits. The profits follow, and if we have remembered that, they have never failed to appear." - George W. Merck
Welcome back for another segment of, Between the Lines - Research Special. Today's topic covers the tragic story of Vioxx, a pharmaceutical drug that led to the deaths of over 38,000 people. Vioxx was an NSAID medication that lowered the risk of gastrointestinal issues; it raised the chance of heart attack and stroke by 400%. In a conglomeration of manipulating data, misleading results, and ghostwriting the pharmaceutical giant, Merck, kept their drug in the market from 1999 to 2004.
The data used and presented in this episode is not my own; I’ve shared each source of data in the links below.
Sources
https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/merck-manipulated-science-about-drug-vioxx
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/19/business/a-time-line-of-vioxx.html
https://www.drugwatch.com/vioxx/lawsuits/
https://www.merck.com/company-overview/history/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merck_Group
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merck_%26_Co.