« So wait, mocking victims is wrong? | Main | The Daily Memo - 4/6/06 »
You’d Better Start Dumping that Merck Stock Now
John McDarby - a retired insurance salesman - and his wife received $4.5 million in damages yesterday in their products liability lawsuit against Merck & Co., the makers of Vioxx. The New Jersey jury found that the company failed to adequately warn McDarby about the risk factors linking the now-withdrawn painkiller to heart attacks and strokes. McDarby, a diabetic who took Vioxx for four years, suffered his heart attack in his living room and broke his hip as a result, triggering a health slide that has left him using a wheelchair and unable to care for himself, which is why his wife received $1.5 million for pain and suffering. Merck pulled Vioxx from the market in September 2004 after a clinical study showed that people who took it longer than 18 months faced twice the risk of suffering heart attacks and strokes.
This is the 5th Vioxx lawsuit brought against Merck, and its second loss (it was victorious in two other suits, and the fifth was set for retrial). Currently, Merck still faces another 9,650 lawsuits, and plans to contest each one. And, unless my math is off (a very reasonable presumption - I am, after all, a lawyer), at this current clip and with its current winning percentage, Merck could pay up to $21 trillion in damages, plus legal fees, before it’s all said and done. I suspect they’re going to have to sell a hell of a lot of Propecia to make up for that loss. And if that’s not alarming enough, the punitive phase in the trial begins today, which could mean that Merck will be out another several million dollars.
Honestly, I haven’t seen anything this hopeless since Tom Hanks lost his shirt (and Shelly Long her career) in The Money Pit.
