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New York Vioxx Lawyer

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According to recent census numbers, the state of New York has an elderly population over 13 percent, putting it in the top-quarter of states with regards to percentage of an elderly population. Since New York has such a large elderly population, there is a good chance that there were many users of the drug Vioxx in New York. Although Vioxx was used primarily by older people, those under the age of 50 were prescribed the drug as well.

Vioxx was introduced as a painkiller targeted to arthritis sufferers in 1999 by Merck, a well-known pharmaceutical research and manufacturing company. It got quick FDA approval and it almost immediately became one of the company's best selling drugs. While Vioxx was very effective in reducing pain in general, it did an even better job targeting arthritis pain in the joints and throughout the body. This made Vioxx extremely popular for elderly people who suffered from the debilitating effects of arthritis. Sales of Vioxx were incredible, almost right from the start, and they only got bigger as time went on. In 2003, the last complete year that Vioxx was available to the general public, Merck made over $2 billion from sales of Vioxx alone, making up nearly 10 percent of their revenue that year.

However, within two years of Vioxx's release, reports began to trickle in from all over the country of an unusually high correlation between Vioxx users and people that suffer from heart attacks and strokes. The initial red flags were enough for Merck to conduct a series of studies themselves on the long-term effects of taking Vioxx. The most famous of those studies, titled VIGOR, showed that after 18 months of non-stop use, Vioxx did in fact significantly increase the likelihood of having a heart attack or a stroke. By the time the VIGOR study was complete, it had almost become common knowledge among doctors and the elderly that Vioxx wasn't as great as they had previously thought. In 2004, Merck voluntarily pulled the drug from the shelves and admitted that there was a connection between serious health risks like heart attacks and strokes and the use of Vioxx.

Almost right away, lawsuits began to be filed against Merck from almost every state. The most noteworthy of the early suits took place in Texas, where a woman was awarded $200 million because she and her lawyer proved that Vioxx contributed to the early death of her husband. Hundreds of suits have followed, some of them class action suits that involved many different parties, some of them were independent suits. The rulings on these suits have been overwhelmingly positive.

If you want to be added to the list of the suits that are being fought and won against Merck, it is important for you to contact a New York Vioxx lawyer or attorney as soon as possible. You can recoup lost wages, medical bills and even funeral costs from Merck. Merck has set aside almost $1 billion for fighting these lawsuits. While no amount of money will fix what has been done, you can secure the financial future of your family. The more people that stand up to the drug companies, the less likely it will be that a similar situation like this will happen again. It was said that over 30,000 people died an early death because of Merck's negligence. Contact a New York Vioxx lawyer or attorney today to help put a stop to pharmaceutical negligence.