Quote Of The Day: Hapless Merck Doctor
3 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // March 10th, 2007 // 7:37 am
Insider at PharmaGossip knows when something’s not right.
Imagine the crestfallen looks on the faces of Merck’s lawyers at the Vioxx trial in Madison County, Illinois, when Nancy Santanello, who is the drugmaker’s head of epidemiology and is described by The St. Louis Post-Dispatch as a ‘corporate representative,’ took the stand.
During a long grilling by plaintiff’s lawyers, she acknowledged that no clinical trial studied Vioxx for more than 18 months before it was released. You may recall, 18 months is the length of time Merck later cited as needed to recognize the pill causes heart problems.
Santanello, who wasn’t involved directly in the early development of Vioxx, then confessed that: “I think you need to look at the product long-term if it’s going to be used long-term.”
Hmmm….Nearly two years ago, during the first Vioxx trial, which took place in Texas, Santanello explained the oversight this way: “At the time, we didn’t think there was any risk.” And what happened? Merck lost that one. The jury ordered the drugmaker to pay $253 million to a poor widow whose hubby dropped after swallowing Vioxx.
Santanello obviously has yet to receive the same witness preparation as Merck’s Alise Reicin, a physician and one-time ‘tireless defender of the Vioxx franchise,’ who regularly frustrates plaintiffs’ lawyers.
As Insider points out, this is what happens when one relies on the ‘B team.’
[tags]Alise Reicin, Merck, Nancy Santanello, Vioxx[/tags]
Kent Jarrell
While I ordinarily would not be inclined to respond to blog postings, I wanted to point out that there was an inaccuracy in the reporting of the testimony of a witness, Dr. Nancy Santanello, a Merck scientist who testified in a VIOXX trial in Madison County, Illinois. Some reports cited only part of her quotes. The purpose of this posting is to quote her public testimony correctly.
Dr. Santanello was asked about some of the many studies the company undertook regarding the medicine and said, according to the court transcript, “I think you need to look at the product long-term if you’re going to use it in the long-term and so, therefore, I think you need longer term studies which I know we did.”
Unfortunately, some reports left off the second half of the sentence.
As Dr. Santanello effectively made clear in her testimony, VIOXX was one of the most studied drugs ever, before the FDA approved it as safe and effective. Merck continued to study VIOXX and then when the APPROVe study showed a potential long-term risk, the company informed the FDA it was going to pull the medication from the market because that would be in the best interest of patients.
Kent Jarrell-spokesman for Merck’s Outside Counsel in the VIOXX litigation.
ed
Kent,
Thanks for pointing this out. Like others, we relied on reoprting from the court and archived stories rumbling around newspaper sites that are accessed from the Internet. (And we’lll assume you’re recitation is from the transcript and not from memory, right?).
On another matter - why don’t you normally post to blogs, especially thoae that also deliver news? A Posting to the Blogger is quickly becoming the same thing as a Letter to the Editor. We’ll gladly accept more. Don’t be shy. We know you’re really not!
ed
Kent JARRELL
It was from a transcript, because I have learned not to trust my memory. I hope to be able to continue the conversation on line as issues come up. And you are right, I have been called a lot of things, but shy is not one of them.
Kent Jarrell