More than one quarter of elderly patients in a study published today in the Canadian Medical Association Journal had heart attacks within six to 13 days after they first began taking the arthritis pain drug Vioxx. Researchers analyzed health records of 114,000 patients over the age of 66 who were prescribed painkillers, including Vioxx, Celebrex, and ibuprofen. Approximately 30% of the entire study population had risk factors for heart disease, which included 30,200 Vioxx users and 45,000 Celebrex users, but none had ever had heart attacks.

Vioxx was withdrawn from the market in September of 2004 when a study found it doubled the risk of heart attacks in patients after 18 months of use. This new study is the first to show that the risks associated with Vioxx are present even in the earliest days of treatment. The study also found that the risk of heart attack diminished after patients stopped taking Vioxx.

Merck and Co., the maker of Vioxx, is currently facing over 11,000 personal injury lawsuits over deaths, heart attacks, strokes and other cardiac events linked to Vioxx. Juries have awarded damages in three of those suits totaling $298.3 million dollars to date.

Source: “Vioxx-linked heart attacks may occur within 2 weeks, study says,” Bloomberg.com, May 2, 2006, accessed May 3, 2006.