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NJ Jury Awards Punitive Damages in Vioxx Case
A New Jersey jury awarded $9 million in punitive damages on Tuesday to a man who blamed his heart attack on the once-popular painkiller Vioxx.
The jury decision found that manufacturer Merck & Co. failed to warn of the risks of its now-withdrawn arthritis drug and misrepresented the risks to physicians.
The damages are in addition to $4.5 million already awarded as compensatory damages to John McDarby, 77, of Park Ridge, who suffered a heart attack after four years on Vioxx, a painkiller taken by 20 million Americans before being pulled off the market, the Associated Press reported.
Tuesday's decision capped a five-week trial that combined two cases: that of McDarby, a retired insurance agent, and Thomas Cona, 60, of Cherry Hill, who said he took the drug for 22 months before his 2003 heart attack, but he couldn't prove it.
Cona's prescription records showed only enough for about seven months' use, and the six-woman, two-man jury rejected his claim that Vioxx was to blame and awarded him only the cost of his prescription.
This is the sixth trial involving Vioxx, and the first involving long-term use. Merck faces 9,650 other lawsuits.
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