Earlier today a jury in Texas found pharmaceutical company Merck must pay $253 million in damages to the family of a triathlete who died after taking the pain-killer drug Vioxx.
$253 million. That's $24.4 million in actual damages and $229 million in punitive damages. According to the WSJ, analyists predict Merck's total liability could be $18 billion.
It's easy to throw numbers around but here's a scale: the total annual operating budget for the state of Missouri in $20 billion.
Merck now admits it was not immediately forthcoming to physicians after the drug hit the market and they found out about the increased risk of heart attacks after. The FDA is makign changes to force greater post-market surveillance of approved drugs. But in many cases, Vioxx was prescribed after other pain killers failed. Even after the dangers had been disclosed, there was an outcry by some patients when the drug was pulled from the market.
I was not on the jury and cannot truly speculate about Merck's culpability in the death of Robert Ernst. But a clear agenda to simply redistribute hundreds of millions (eventually billions?) of dollars establishes exactly the wrong incentives. This is roulette for families and patients, not fairness.
Furthermore, this just set sthe stakes higher for the next pharmaceutical company to cover its tracks better. I don't think anyone asserts Merck knew of the dangers when initially marketing the drug. After troubles begin showing up in broader audiences than in the clinical tests, is a company more or less likely to disclose new information or cover up if it could be opened up to billions of dollars of damages?
I think it's ridiculous that these settlements are still allowed to take place. It's past time for caps on all non economic damages.
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