This afternoon, in the federal district courthouse in New Orleans, lawyers detailed for the first time how many -- and how much -- U.S. Vioxx® claims now settled involved (per BusinessWeek's online reporting -- do go read it all):
. . . .Merck, based in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, settled after battling plaintiffs who claimed in state and federal courts that it didn’t adequately disclose Vioxx safety data to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, didn’t properly warn doctors and patients of the drug’s risks and misrepresented the potential harm in marketing materials.
Under the program, BrownGreer [a court-appointed lawfirm] determined that 20,591 heart attack claims merited payment, including the 2,878 death cases. The average payment for all heart attack cases was $186,825. The payments for fatal heart attacks ranged from $18,743 to $1.79 million, with the average at $374,112.
The law firm concluded that 12,447 stroke claims merited payment, including the 590 death cases. Average payments for all stroke cases was $61,165. Payments for fatal strokes ranged from $5,015 to $818,119, with the average at $119,618.
A total of 1,061 different law firms handled Vioxx claims. . . .
So, Merck paid out on nearly 20,600 additional heart attacks as a result of Vioxx prescriptions, and nearly 2,900 of those heart attacks were fatal. Overall, Merck paid on 3,468 claims involving fatalities. Although almost all the individual US Vioxx cases are now settled, potentially thousands still remain open and unsettled -- in active dispute -- in Australia (some previous detail on those, here), throughout Europe, Canada and the United Kingdom, among other places.
As ever, more to come.
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