Merck's VIOXX®

Merck & Co. today announced a recall of its popular anti-inflammatory drug VIOXX®, due to findings of increased risk of cardiovascular events (heart attack and stroke) in patients who had been using the drug daily for 18 months or longer.

This recall may have come as no surprise to readers of an August 26, 2004, article in BusinessWeek magazine, "A Bitter Pill for Merck's Vioxx,", which cited an FDA study that indicated an elevated risk of cardiovascular events in patients using VIOXX.

A spokesperson for Merck provided some guidance for VIOXX users and some comments explaining why the company decided to recall this medication in an interview today with Etopia Media Medical News Network.

You can hear that interview by clicking here.

You can read what the Food & Drug Administration had to say about all this by clicking here.

As this version of this page was being posted at 3:00 pm PDT on September 30th, repeated calls to Merck competitor Pfizer for comment about its rival COX-2 inhibitor Celebrex® in terms of its bio-active dissimilarities from VIOXX and how Pfizer may now try to take market share from Merck in the huge non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) market had not been returned.