Clinton family member hurt by Vioxx

Looks like former president Bill Clinton has a family member who has been hurt by Vioxx. Clinton recently spoke at an investor's forum in Hong Kong.

While he spoke on a whole range of political, social, and economic issues, one of the questions that was asked was about where he saw the right balance between protecting individuals and companies' rights after the recent Vioxx verdict in Texas.

"Well, the Vioxx case is actually a hard case -- and, I have a member of my family who suffered a long-term health problem from taking Vioxx by prescription - because we now know that the company (Merck) knew, before they even marketed Vioxx, what the dangers were," he said.

While Clinton favors some form of tort reform but he thinks that "there should be some alternative penalty which can be imposed if you can prove a company deliberately brought a product to market when its only experts told 'em not to do it, which is what happened with Vioxx. And a hell-of-a-lotta people got hurt on that deal."