More damning evidence came to light today; the New England Journal of Medicine said that the authors of a vioxx trial deleted data showing that three additional patients had heart attacks. This is not a good development for Merck, it really calls into account their scientific credibility and why they decided to mislead the journal. The numbers don't really make a difference though. I think Merck made a collosal mistake when they released Vioxx; it's not that much better than naproxen (seemingly), and the risk of heart attacks is, according to this report, 7-fold higher. But it's one of those things that wouldn't be caught by clinical trials because of the huger numbers of people which are involved. Could we add another layer of clinical trials? Sure, but that would pretty much kill the drug market. One of ten drugs which enters clinical trials makes it. Another layer would decrease that probably two fold or higher, but more importantly it would make the drug cost so much that it wouldn't be worth it to market it. Why market a product that costs billions of dollars, when you only have a few years of patent life left to recoop? Sure, something needs to be done, but what I don't know. Anyway, Merck is looking to take a $50 billion dollar hit on this, plus the damage to their credibility. I wouldn't be surprised if they are bought out and 'disappear' in a few years.