Vioxx has hurt people all over the world, not just the United States. While several countries have reasonable laws against drug companies knowingly selling dangerous products, many don't or make it harder for victims to sue them. One of these countries is Britain, which despite being a developed country, makes it difficult for British people to sue drugmakers like Merck.

The British Vioxx victims tried to sue Merck in the United States but in a disappointing decision, a court in New Jersey has ruled that they cannot use the American court system for their grievance. Naturally, Merck is delighted because it can't be effectively sued in the UK for its crimes.

Brian writes, "My case started 2 years ago due to a stroke I suffered after taking Vioxx for 3 years. I am using a group of attorneys who specialize in Vioxx cases. They only get paid if I get compensated. At this point, they said my case is being reviewed by the New Jersey courts. How far along do you think I am in my case? My lawyers have told me that they are making progress but they won't go into detail about a timeline. Please help. I have already suffered enough."

As you very well know American legal process is slow and Merck is doing whatever it can to delay the process. Honestly, I would love to be able to tell you more but based on what you have told me (and I am assuming that you have told me everything that you know), it is nearly impossible for me to say what is happening to your case.

Remember that there are close to 30,000 cases right now and Merck has said that it wants to fight each case one by one (a delaying tactic to wear out the victims). It means that even your attorneys may know only little about when a specific case will be tried. So just be patient. Justice will be served.

The story of Patricia Schwaller is heartbreaking. According to her husband Frank, she took Vioxx for about 20 months for pain in her shoulders, and then died suddenly due to cardiac arrest in August of 2003. When Vioxx was recalled a year later, he suspected that the drug killed his wife since there is overwhelming evidence now that Vioxx increases the risk of cardiovascular complications.

In a scenario that we have seen in the lawsuits brought by Stewart Grossberg, Gary Albright, Anthony Dedrick, Elaine Doherty, Gary Smith, Charles Laron Ron Mason, and a few others, she had a family history of heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure. The message is that if you are overweight or obese, you have a weak case against Merck. The company is exploiting this weakness in the cases of many victims.

It's not over yet. Frederick Mike Humeston, who lost his case the first time, eventually won $48 million compensation in the retrial - the company has made the same arguement in his case. Merck faces as many as 27,000 lawsuits and only a few cases have been decided so far.

Frederick Mike Humeston lost his first Vioxx trial since the company hid crucial and damaging evidence from the jurors. New Jersy Superior Court Judge Carol Higbee did the right thing by granting him a retrial. Last week, Humeston got a favorable decision in his case.

Merck has now been directed by a jury to pay as much as $47.5 million to Humeston and his wife - $20 million in compensatory and $27.5 million in punitive damages.

Now don't expect the company to simply write him a check right away. The company will do anything possible to deny him (and all other Vioxx victims who have won their cases) any compensation for his heart attack and suffering. "We disagree with today's jury's verdict," said Hope Freiwald of Dechert LLP, a member of Merck's defense team. "The last time a jury considering the Humeston case had a chance to hear all the evidence at one time it found that Merck acted responsibly." Merck has objected to the structure of the trial because of the potential for jury confusion and bias.

When twice-decorated, Vietnam-war veteran Frederick "Mike" Humeston lost his Vioxx lawsuit against Merck, everyone was shocked by Merck's ferocious attack. Thanks to the foresight and wisdom of New Jursey Superior Court Judge Carol Higbee who was very troubled by the discovery of highly incriminating documents, a retrial was granted to give him another chance for justice.

Now a jury in Atlantic City has done justice to him. In a a big slap on the face of Merck attorneys and executives, who have tried to argue that the company did nothing wrong, the jury has decided that the company committed fraud by knowingly hiding the dangers of Vioxx. The decision implies that if Merck cared for the lives and health of its customers, Humeston would have never suffered a heart attack and would still be a healthy man.

When he took Vioxx for his arthritic pain, he did not realize that it would lead to a heart attack. So when Merck recalled Vioxx after the death of as many as 60,000 Americans (and an unknown number of people worldwide), he sued. Instead of admitting its guilt, the company used every dirty trick it could find, every document that it could hide, and every lie that it could come up with to deny him any compensation.

The other lawsuit that was tried simultaneously with this case, and brought by the estate of Brian Hermans, went in Merck's favor.

Merck attorney Diane Sullivan has done it again. Her unprofessional behaviour in the first Humeston trial attracted the anger and reprimand from Superior Court Judge Carol Higbee. With the kind of rebuke that she received even a six-year old would have gotten the message; not Sullivan though it seems.

In a replay of her past behavior, she violated all the rules of behaving professionally in a court. "It is unprofessional, it is unethical, and it is contemptuous of this court," Judge Higbee said. She further accused Sullivan of deliberately violating the Judge's orders and vowed that she was "not going to deal with this kind of unprofessionalism." Ouch!

Oh, are things that bad at Merck that they can't hire a decent lawyer to represent them in the latest trial? Yes, they are. Hope Freiwald, another attorney on Merck's team, confirmed "We're going to continue to go forward with Diane as the lead counsel."

Rudolph Arrigale and Lawrence Appell from California are blaming Merck for knowing the dangers of the painkiller but not disclosing these to them, their physicians, and the FDA. They say that if they knew that the painkiller was deadly, they would have never taken it. In the trial, the jury got deadlocked over the issue of Merck's responsibility for communicating the risks and dangers.

Brian Panish, the plaintiff's attorney is asking for a retrial. Retrial in the case of Frederick "Mike" Humeston (Mark Lanier is his attorney again) is in progress in Atlantic City. The other new case being tried has been brought by Kathleen Hermans Messerschmidt (represented by Christopher Seeger), sister of Brian Hermans who died at the young age of 44 after taking Vioxx.

In a related development, a New Jersey court is also directing Superior Court Judge Carol Higbee to allow medical monitoring of patients who took the drug but did not suffer any cardiovascular complications right away. In another judgment, the Vioxx class action lawsuits are also going forward.

Vioxx victims received another victory over Merck. The company withdrew the deadly painkiller in 2005 after it was found that as many as 60,000 Americans died due to heart attacks and strokes due to the side effects of the drug. Many of these patients who did not suffer a cardiovascular complication, like Phyllis Sinclair and Joseph Murray, had sued the firm seeking medical monitoring. The company has been very hostile to its past customers and refused to pay for it.

A New Jersey Appeals court is ordering Superior Court Judge Carol Higbee that she reconsider her earlier decision to side with the drugmaker.

Vioxx litigation resumes

While recent months have meant setbacks to Vioxx victims and victories for Merck, in a favorable decision to the victims, a New Jersey appellate court has ruled against the company, potentially allowing some more class action lawsuits to go forward.

In related news, after a break for Christmas holidays, Vioxx litigation is resuming in the court of NJ Superior Court Judge Carol Higbee, who is presiding over most of the approximately 27,000 cases.

One plaintiff is Frederick "Mike" Humeston, a decorated Vietnam veteran, who first lost his case because Merck hid critical data about the dangers of the painkiller. He eventually won a retrial and the trial is now on.

The second lawsuit has been fined by the estate of Brian Hermans, who died of a heart attack at an early age of 44. While Merck has won some cases arguing that victims were already obese and had pre-existing cardiovascular complications, it may be somewhat harder to claim that in this case. Hermans was "a world-class racquetball player" whose autopsy showed a heart artery blocked by a large blood clot (something that Vioxx is known to do). The attorney taking on Merck is Mark Lanier, who also defended Carol Ernst.