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Exposure Is A Good Thing…..Australian class action against Merck in the federal court began 3-30-2009 inMelbourne.Merck is fighting this class action- risking the copious amounts of dirty laundry of theirs being exposed to the world. Their confidence and ego as an entity are clearlyinflated.Plaintiffs are led by Graeme and Peterson law firm. The judge is Chris Jessup. Trial is expected to take a critical look at the autonomy, behavior, and marketingtactics of Merck. Aspects of reports and articles from this trial since it started:3-31: Merck employee David Loker had both his parents die while on Vioxx. Davidconsiders Merck’s defense regarding Vioxxrightfully a bit too much to swallow.Merck is being accused of ignoring clinical tests, which they did if the tests did notfavor Vioxx. Just because something is ignored or is not discussed certainly doesnot mean it does not exist.Vioxxlinked to CV events was acknowledged in 1998. Merck employee andlaboratory head Ed Scholnick was troubled and worried about research resultsrecently linking Vioxxto CV events in the year 2000. Yet no action was taken by this man high up the corporate ladder of Merck, andaction should have been taken to save the lives of others.4-1: Merck made a hit list of doctors who had to be neutralized and discredited dueto criticizing Vioxx, and recommended a course of action, which includedintimidation tactics as damage control.
 
 The doctors were primarily researchers and academics, as Merck was seeking KOLs.Key Opinion Leaders are coerced by Merck to present Vioxxwith intentional bias, asMerck is paying them for this role with their company.Merck’s culture is illustrated that seriously impinges on academic freedom. Mr.Peterson is accused by Merck of not taking Vioxx months before his myocardialinfarction, based on filling of a prescription of Vioxx.Not taken into account is the samples of Vioxx Mr. Peterson likely took in the monthsbefore his MI.4-2: Dr. Paul Anderson was unaware of the cardiovascular risk associated withVioxx, and would not have prescribed this drug had he known this associationexisted. This overtly exposes Merck’s unbalanced representation of the qualities of Vioxx.4-9: Merck hires guest authors, such as scientists, doctors, and academics, forresearch constructed by Merck, as well as Merck constructing entire journals thatare deceptive to others intentionally.All data presented to others from such bastardization of the scientific method islikely harmful to both health care providers and the patients who may take Vioxx asa result.4-15: Dr. John Dickman states that over the course of 3 years, the multiple visits byVioxx sales representatives never disclosed the risks of Vioxxand cardiovascularevents. This is not unusual, as pharmaceutical representatives are only concerned withincreasing the number of prescriptions of products they promote to doctors.Balancing their conversations with doctors regarding their promoted productsprovides no benefit to the representative, and would be against their monetarygoal.
 
4-16: Aggressive sales strategies shared with the court implemented by Merck andthe marketing of Vioxx.Sales representatives with Merck were directed to utilize objection handling cards if anything negative about Vioxxwas brought up by a prescriber. This, apparently, was felt necessary by Merck so that the sales representative wouldnot engage or research any negative qualities associated with Vioxx.Merck implemented a highly sophisticated and well-resourced marketing campaignthat was able to minimize the awareness of safety risks that exist with Vioxx. This included telling Vioxx sales representatives that cardiovascular risks beingassociated with Vioxx is outright lies generated by competitors of Vioxx. Thisseemed to comfort the Vioxx sales representatives, and sedate any concerns theymay have had about this very serious issue.4-17: Merck implements quid pro quo with bribing targeted doctors so they willprescribe more Vioxx. This in itself is illegal in the United States at times, as itviolates the federal Anti-Kickback statute.Merck gives its sales representatives a ‘budget spend’, and requires them toexhaust the budget within a certain time frame. So obviously Merck representativeare anxious to bribe doctors for this reason alone. They determine such doctors by the prescribing data they have on each doctor dueto the AMA selling prescribing data to the pharmaceutical industry in the Unitedstates that makes the American Medical Association about 50 million dollars a year.4-18: Merck intends to bring a Vioxx human commercial to Australia to increasemarket share of Vioxxat this location, which actually is Merck attempting to acquirea new host for their damaging virus.
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