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> "We find the largest rise in American mortality rates occurred in 1999, the year Vioxx was introduced, while the largest drop occurred in 2004, the year it wa

> "We find the largest rise in American mortality rates occurred in 1999, the year Vioxx was introduced, while the largest drop occurred in 2004, the year it was withdrawn," says Unz. "Vioxx was almost entirely marketed to the elderly, and these substantial changes in the national death-rate were completely concentrated within the 65-plus population. I want to believe there were other factors at the time, but I can't see it. It was widely used, in that age group, and the company already knew of the risks. I wonder if this will lead to more people buying Chinese drugs, given the more harsh reaction by the government during their own drug crises.

fatfingerd 3y ago
> I wonder if this will lead to more people buying Chinese drugs, given the more harsh reaction by the government during their own drug crises. I doubt it, baby formula importing didn't seem to die down in China as a result. I haven't been following the developments there recently, but I am skeptical this changed even after the US' chaos over allowing a near monopoly to become too big to shut off, too unsafe not to, and naturally above criminal consequences for fraudulent paperwork.
mcguire 3y ago
Derek Lowe (https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/500-000-excess-deaths-vioxx-where https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/500-000-excess-dea...): ""We find the largest rise in American mortality rates occurred in 1999, the year Vioxx was introduced, while the largest drop occurred in 2004, the year it was withdrawn," says Unz. "Vioxx was almost entirely marketed to the elderly, and these substantial changes in the national death-rate were completely concentrated within the 65-plus population." I found this claim very hard to believe. (For one thing, how could all those patients and lawyers suing Merck have let this get past them?) Looking at the statistics themselves, I can see no evidence for Unz's claim. Here, for example, is the death rate in the US, crude and age-adjusted, over this time span: And to get more specific, here are the numbers for cardiovascular deaths for people 65 and over. (They're in a chart comparing them to cancer death rates as well):* I do not see the effects that Unz is talking about. Not at all. A single-cause change in the death rate of the magnitude that he's proposing should most certainly show up in these figures (particularly the latter chart), but it isn't there. I see no reason to take this claim seriously."

fatfingerd 3y ago

> I wonder if this will lead to more people buying Chinese drugs, given the more harsh reaction by the government during their own drug crises. I doubt it, baby formula importing didn't seem to die down in China as a result. I haven't been following the developments there recently, but I am skeptical this changed even after the US' chaos over allowing a near monopoly to become too big to shut off, too unsafe not to, and naturally above criminal consequences for fraudulent paperwork.

mcguire 3y ago

Derek Lowe (https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/500-000-excess-deaths-vioxx-where https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/500-000-excess-dea...): ""We find the largest rise in American mortality rates occurred in 1999, the year Vioxx was introduced, while the largest drop occurred in 2004, the year it was withdrawn," says Unz. "Vioxx was almost entirely marketed to the elderly, and these substantial changes in the national death-rate were completely concentrated within the 65-plus population." I found this claim very hard to believe. (For one thing, how could all those patients and lawyers suing Merck have let this get past them?) Looking at the statistics themselves, I can see no evidence for Unz's claim. Here, for example, is the death rate in the US, crude and age-adjusted, over this time span: And to get more specific, here are the numbers for cardiovascular deaths for people 65 and over. (They're in a chart comparing them to cancer death rates as well):* I do not see the effects that Unz is talking about. Not at all. A single-cause change in the death rate of the magnitude that he's proposing should most certainly show up in these figures (particularly the latter chart), but it isn't there. I see no reason to take this claim seriously."