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Vioxx Attorney Introduces Record Amount of Evidence
July 27, 2005
ANGLETON, Texas -- Plaintiff's attorney Mark Lanier introduced 157 boxes of documents, the largest single exhibit ever presented in a trial in Brazoria County. Lanier claims that the evidence represents the documents that Merck "dumped" on the FDA to get approval for Vioxx in 1999. Known for his courtroom theatrics, Lanier dramatically declared that Merck buried FDA researchers in documents to hide study results negatively portraying Vioxx. The documents make up only a small sampling of the paperwork Merck has provided to plaintiff's attorneys across the nation. Merck has surrendered computer discs containing 7 million documents to lawyers in nearly 4,300 Vioxx lawsuits in state and federal courts. Lanier claimed to have a staff of 17 people reading the documents over a period of the past few months. In response to Lanier's claims, Nancy Santanello, Merck's head epidemiologist, testified that Merck filed the documents in electronic form so that FDA investigators could easily search for any information they desired to find. Included were all the reports gathered on each of at least 10,000 patients who took part in clinical studies before Vioxx was approved. Santanello said Merck provided to the FDA all of the study data it had. "If they had a question on any patient, they could search the data base for that individual patient," she said. The trial was originally scheduled to last five weeks, but officials on both sides have expressed doubt that it can be finished that soon.
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