Aug. 26, 2005. 06:32 AM, Toronto Star

Vioxx users joining lawsuits
$253M U.S. award spurs class actions
About 3,000 Canadians planning to sue

RITA DALY
STAFF REPORTER

 

Nancy Mason was seated on a bench watching her 7-year-old nephew swim at a Mississauga pool when numbness suddenly swept up the right side of her body.

She reached for her cell phone and called her family doctor, who said to get to a hospital right away.

Mason, a school bus driver, blames the anti-arthritis drug Vioxx for the stroke she suffered that summer of 2003. She now suffers permanent numbness in her right hand and arm.

She's not alone. More than 3,000 Canadians are estimated to have joined class actions across the country so far, many of whom suffered heart attacks or strokes, or whose relatives died while taking Vioxx.

The $2.5 billion blockbuster drug was pulled worldwide by the manufacturer last September.

The tally is expected to grow, following last week's Texas court decision awarding a widow $253 million (U.S.) after her 59-year-old husband died from a fatal arrhythmia.

New Jersey-based pharmaceutical giant Merck and Co. said it is appealing the jurors' verdict and has set aside hundreds of millions of dollars to defend every lawsuit.

The Texas decision has caused reverberations around the globe, with a U.S. federal court judge predicting the embattled company could ultimately face up to 100,000 lawsuits.

"After last Friday's decision, the phones started ringing and we started getting more emails. It was like a revival of Vioxx claims," said Whitby lawyer Murray Miskin, one of a number of Ontario lawyers who have filed claims.

Roughly 30 class actions have been launched across the country on behalf of Canadians who claim to have suffered personal injury from taking the popular painkiller, defence lawyers say. The claims should eventually be consolidated into a single nation-wide lawsuit. An estimated 700,000 Canadians have taken Vioxx.

Merck officials in Montreal this week would not confirm the number of claims filed against the company or that a statement of defence has yet to be filed.

Mason, the same age as Texas' Robert Ernst was when he died while taking Vioxx, considers herself lucky to be alive.

"I'm glad for her (Ernst's widow), although she doesn't have him, so what good's the money, really? I'm thankful every day that I have my life still. And I'll be happy if I can help anybody else with this case," she said.

Mason said what frightens her is that Vioxx may some day return to the market, despite a long-term study that showed the drug could double the risk of heart attacks and stroke in people taking it for at least 18 months.

She took the drug for almost four years to treat arthritis in her knees and went off it only after it was pulled from pharmacy shelves Sept. 30, 2004.

Following public hearings, an expert advisory panel recently voted 12-1 for Vioxx to be sold again on the Canadian market with certain conditions, but Health Canada won't decide until the fall and Merck would have to re-submit an application for approval.

As more Vioxx users line up for lawsuits, the company is gearing up for a series of cases this fall in its home state of New Jersey, as well as Texas and New Orleans. Roughly 4,200 individual and group lawsuits have been filed in U.S. state and federal courts.

The courts will look at whether Merck deliberately misled regulators, doctors and patients and, based on the risks and benefits of the drug, whether they were given proper warning.

The Texas case ruling, in which the award will likely be reduced to a maximum of $26.1 million under the state's caps on punitive damages, proved to be a surprise for Merck. The causal link between Vioxx and Ernst's condition that led to his death was considered a difficult one to prove.

"The decision in the Ernst case is going to cause a major push with the likelihood of settlements in the next year or two," Miskin predicted.

Mary Jane McNicholl suffered a massive heart attack on April 20, 2001, while taking Vioxx.

She'd been taking the drug for about four months to ease the pain in her neck when she was rushed to Toronto East General Hospital and underwent an emergency angioplasty. She is now on heart medication and suffers from angina.

"It would be right and just to have a settlement after what I've been through," she said.