Oregon is in the top tier of states that has a high elderly population. According to a recent census, over 13 percent of Oregon’s population is over the age of 65, meaning that the chances of people in Oregon having taken the now banned drug Vioxx are quite high. Vioxx was once prescribed to help with the day to day pain of arthritis, but it soon became apparent that the drug caused much more harm then good. If you or someone close to you took Vioxx, you should seriously consider speaking to an attorney. Large sums of money have already been awarded to people whose lives have been ruined by Vioxx. Let’s take a closer look at this terrible tragedy and see if you have a case that you can file against Merck.

Vioxx first hit the shelves in 1999 after it breezed through the FDA approval process. Almost instantly, the drug was a major hit. It is no secret that the prevalence of damp conditions in Oregon can be trying on a person’s arthritis and no other drug on the market could attack the pain associated with arthritis quite like Vioxx. The drug became so popular that by the year 2003, Merck reported that revenue from the drug topped two billion dollars. It is amazing to think of a company making that much money off of one drug, but it does justify the hundreds of millions of dollars that companies spend on the development of new drugs in hopes that they will have the next Vioxx.

However, within a year of the release of Vioxx, problems began to arise. Doctors, pharmacists and clinical experts from around the world began to point out the connection that seemed to exist between the use of the drug and increased occurrences of strokes and heart attacks. Defenders of the drug dismissed the idea as simply elderly people passing because of natural causes. What mattered is that Vioxx killed the pesky pain of arthritis. But the scientists at Merck saw the writing on the wall and, in a desperate attempt to disprove the growing chorus of voices that were asking the drug to be pulled, they performed their own studies. What Merck wasn’t counting on, however, was that their own studies showed exactly what the experts had been saying all along: Vioxx makes you significantly more likely to have a heart attack. The scientists at Merck said that the correlation didn’t start until you had been using the drug for 18 months, but most experts believed the risk was raised much sooner.

The first woman to win a large settlement against Merck said that her husband had only been using the medication for 8 months before he died of a heart attack. The judge agreed and awarded the women a nine-figure settlement. While not every case has been this lucrative, the majority of people that have been able to clearly demonstrate a link between a heart attack or stroke and Vioxx usage have won their cases. That’s why we urge you to contact an attorney in your area if you feel that someone you know and love had his or her life cut short because of Vioxx. We need to make the drug companies pay for their errors, and you can help by contacting a lawyer. The only way they will start putting the health of Americans above their own profits is if we hit them where it counts: in the wallet. Contact an attorney today if you feel you have a case.