1402 Amen! shouted the lawyers

Of course. They get 1/3 of the Vioxx settlement. Although I know it will be appealed.

And let's hope those lawyers will personally never need a life changing, disease fighting drug or technology developed by the U.S. pharmaceutical industry. It is a very risky area to invest in--as a retiree, I'll probably look for something safer, something less identified with miracles that can never backfire.

The Vioxx case involved a man who had undiagnosed arrhythmia and died. "The pathologist who performed Ernst's autopsy testified during the trial that a blood clot likely caused the arrhythmia and a subsequent fatal heart attack. The pathologist could not offer 100% certainty that there was a blood clot (not found during the autopsy) or heart attack. The jury demonstrated by its verdict that it believed the theory that a blood clot caused the arrhythmia and that Merck and Vioxx were liable."

Well, let me weigh-in with something that IS 100% certain. I've had arrhythmia all my life and it was NEVER found until 1996 when feeling light-headed, I walked a mile to the clinic from my office at OSU and was immediately put in a wheelchair and pushed through a construction zone to the emergency room and admitted. In order to be diagnosed, you have to be having an episode during a doctor's visit. That was my third or fourth incident that day and I guess I was just tired of grabbing a wall every time I stood up. I'd never reported it because I've only been me, and I assumed everyone's heart raced after eating peanut butter, or remembering an auto accident, or chatting in a nice restaurant, or walking into the stacks to reshelve an armload of journals. I thought the room went black for everyone when changing positions suddenly. It was never picked up in check-ups, in pregnancy and labor, or in my only surgery.

After several days of testing at the OSU Hospital the diagnosis was "idiopathic atrial fibrillation." That means, "we don't know why you have a heart rate that some times is 50 and sometimes is 300." But they didn't even tell me the worst part. A nurse friend visited me in the hospital and told me I could have died any number of times, or had a serious stroke. The blood pools, then builds up and splashes on through--sometimes in a clot.

After 5 years of medications to control my heart rate, and a generation of heart research and new technology (paid for by investors and inventors in our health care companies), it was determined I had an extra circuit in my heart, fluttering there trying to join the party redirecting the electrical impulses to nowhere land. It was zapped in 2002, and I went on new and different meds including coumadin, because although the circuit was gone, the pulmonary veins around my heart didn't know the ship had left the dock and continued to flutter and cause problems. They needed to be retrained, and the meds were for that. About 18 months ago those meds (developed by a pharmaceutical company), were discontinued.

Jane Galt and Dr. Sanity comment.