Merck recently faced a $253 million verdict in Vioxx-related litigation (however it should be noted that under Texas law, the amount, awarded to Carol Ernst, will be cut to $26 million) and Pacific New Service has a profile of a key witess in this case, Dr. Maria Araneta, the coroner who conducted the autopsy on Robert Ernst, Carol's husband, who died while taking Vioxx. Also note the key role of a private investigator in locating Araneta, who left her job in Fort Worth, Texas in 2002 and moved to the middle east. Plaintiff's counsel at the Lanier Law Firm engaged the services of an investigator to lovate Araneta. She was later flow to Texas to testify at trial.

Filipino Witness Doomed Vioxx

News Report,
Filipino Reporter
September 01, 2005

The crucial testimony of Dr. Maria Araneta, the Filipino coroner who conducted the autopsy on a Texas man who died while taking Vioxx, helped convince a Texas jury last Aug. 20 to return a stunning $254.4 million verdict against pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. in the first trial involving health risks from the popular pain reliever. The jury award to the man’s widow, Carol Ernst, is the largest ever against the New Jersey-based drugmaker, which faces more than 4,000 other Vioxx-related suits in state and federal courts. It is also one of the largest damage awards ever to a single plaintiff.

The Manila-born Araneta testified on video that Robert Ernst, who died from an irregular heartbeat in 2001, more likely died from arrhythmia caused by a heart attack while taking Vioxx for eight years. At the time of Ernst’s death, Araneta was assistant coroner with the Johnson County Medical Examiner’s Office and performed autopsies at Walls Regional Hospital in Cleburne near Fort Worth, Texas, where she worked from 1994 to 2002. A graduate of the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH), Araneta moved to Abu Dhabi in the Middle East, and was only flown by the plaintiff’s legal team to Angleton, Texas — 40 miles south of Houston — to testify.

Plaintiff’s lawyer Mark Lanier hired a private investigator to find Araneta. Lanier then persuaded the Filipina doctor to return to Texas, telling her she’s “going to make such a good witness.” Two days later, Araneta gave a videotaped deposition in which she said she believed that Ernst had actually died of a heart attack, despite her autopsy finding, which was devastating to Merck’s defense. Araneta’s testimony also helped cement Lanier’s place as one of the top civil trial lawyers in America. Merck pulled Vioxx from the market in September last year when a study showed it doubled risk of heart attack or stroke if taken 18 months or longer. But Merck contends no studies link Vioxx to arrhythmia based on Araneta’s testimony, and therefore the drug couldn’t have caused Ernst’s death.

In the private deposition last July 26, Araneta testified that arrhythmia, the clinical term for an irregular heartbeat, “does not spontaneously occur.” She testified that “something must trigger it.” Her opinion counters Vioxx maker Merck & Co.’s reliance on her report to bolster its position that Ernst didn’t have a heart attack. Araneta’s opinion supports plaintiff’s lawyer Mark Lanier’s contention that Ernst suffered a heart attack that killed him too fast to leave evidence of heart damage. He also has drawn jurors’ attention to Merck’s medical manual for doctors, which says arrhythmia in some form occurs in more than 90 percent of heart attack patients.

She said Ernst probably had a heart attack because a blood clot blocked blood in an artery already clogged with plaque. However, vigorous CPR conducted on Ernst — including pounding on his chest that fractured some of his ribs — probably dislodged the clot and his sudden death left no time for his heart to show damage, she said. “Vigorous CPR could dislodge a clot. Also, the clot may be small. It doesn’t have to be a big clot to cause a myocardial infarction,” she said, using the medical term for heart attack. Araneta also conceded that sudden cardiac death with clogged arteries can occur without a heart attack. Ernst, a 59-year-old marathoner, was taking Vioxx for eight months to ease pain in his hands before he died in his bed on May 6, 2001.

Merck’s lawyers have relied heavily on Araneta’s autopsy, which attributed Ernst’s death to arrhythmia secondary to blocked arteries and doesn’t mention heart attack as a cause. However, Lanier, the plaintiff’s lawyer, didn’t identify Araneta by name as a witness by the pretrial deadline, so Merck’s team balked at what they called her surprise appearance. Merck’s former marketing director also testified — saying the drug was never tested for its effects on the heart before going on the market Merck said it would appeal the decision, citing several grounds for reversal, such as the plaintiff’s use of a surprise witness, referring to Araneta.

The jury said Carol Ernst should be awarded $229 million in punitive damages and $24.5 million for mental anguish and economic losses. Because punitive damages are capped at $1.6 million in Texas, Ernst would receive no more than $26.1 million total. Jurors said they voted to hold Merck liable in part because of videotaped testimony from Araneta. They said they were also influenced by internal documents that showed the company “seemed to care more about profits from the drug than the public’s welfare.”

More lawyers are expected to queue up cases against Merck. One trial is scheduled to begin this September in Atlantic City, and the first federal case will begin in New Orleans in November. Reports said some 20 million people used Vioxx for chronic pain after it was approved in 1999. It brought in $2.5 billion in sales a year. News of the verdict sent the company’s stock price down 7 percent to $28.06 at the close of regular trading, a loss of $5 billion in market value.

The original article appears here.

-- MDT