Drug firm provided “selective” death data
And the FDA never
"noticed".
A multinational drug company that made a painkiller that had to be withdrawn from sale because it was found to cause heart attacks may have hidden the death rate from the authorities for several years, it was claimed yesterday. Internal company documents released during litigation in the US suggest that Merck, makers of Vioxx, gave the US Food and Drug Administration only selected data on deaths in its clinical trials, and failed to include people who had a fatal heart attack soon after coming off the drug.
The documents also show that papers published in journals on the results of Vioxx trials were ghostwritten by employees or contracted medical writers, and that leading doctors were later invited to be named as authors. Financial links were sometimes but not always declared.
Have we reached a new low in Pharmco sleaze?
Posted: Wed - April 16, 2008 at 06:17 AM