3 ms·
>It soon turned out Merck had known of potential lethal side effects even before launching Vioxx in 1999, but had brushed all such disturbing tests under the ru
by 99_00 3y ago
>It soon turned out Merck had known of potential lethal side effects even before launching Vioxx in 1999, but had brushed all such disturbing tests under the rug.
I don't trust this line.
I suspect that preliminary tests show all kinds of extreme possibilities. Positive and negative.
How many dangerous side effects never came to be?
How many supposed benefits never came to be?
Why should they have paid particular attention to this dangerous side effect? The article doesn't make it clear.
And for the record, I believe drug companies don't have our best interests at heart and that the FDA is captured by industry.
- whatshisface 3y agoWhen you're doing preliminary studies, you get a sense of how common the side effects are, and if a rare one shows up you know your statistical power on bounding its likelihood. Multiplying by your expected market will tell you how well you've bounded total deaths. Consequently, you'll know when you need to extend the study to get a better detection - but to tell you the truth, for the issue to have been bad enough for them to choose to hide it entirely instead of disclosing it a list of terrible rare side effects that all medicines have, it must have been common enough in their sample for the large number of total deaths to have been predicted.
- dennis_jeeves2 3y ago>>It soon turned out Merck had known of potential lethal side effects even before launching Vioxx in 1999, but had brushed all such disturbing tests under the rug. >I don't trust this line. If I recollect there were 'whistle blowers' from Merck who said this at one point. For those who have followed similar situations/drugs (like Prozac) it is well know that cherry picking studies or results by pharma is common place.