Merck Pharmaceuticals murdered 50,000 people by causing heart attacks and strokes from their drug, Vioxx, that they knew would cause these problems, yet they still withheld this information from the FDA and the general public. Merck's internal records that we supoened under the Freedom of Information Act dislosed that they were aware of these problems in 1995. Nonetheless they came out with the drug in 1999 and only removed it from the market in 2004 when the FDA was about to take the drug off the market.
Merck will pay about $6 billion in fines and law suits from patients, but made more than $20 billion in sales. This was still a good business deal for them! Merck plead guilty to a misdemeanor and still denied wrongdoing! It is hard to believe that crimminal charges have not been filed against the company and those individuals responsible for the death 50,000 people.
It is also shameful that the FDA has not removed the vast majority of NSAIDs that remain on the market despite the fact that we know they cause heart attacks and strokes too!
