knowknot at mindspring.com wrote:
> Detailed reports of the trial suggest strongly another alternative
> than the above "either, etc." and, at that, one at odds with the
> W.S.J.'s putative reporting of the case: that the jurors did not fail
> to understand and also did not "disregard" Merck's lawyers' expert
> witnesses but, rather, because of other compelling evidence in the
> case - Merck's own many internal documents to the effect that Merck's
> management new of and decided to try both to conceal and to
> misrepresent the company's own researchers' and others' findings about
> the adverse effects of Vioxx - here was good reason affirmatively to
> disbelieve those witnesses (again: not "disregard" them).
I was at a dinner party last night, which was hosted by a guy who had been a chemical engineer. The Merck story came up and he said that in the last twenty years all biochem high level management -- which had normally come up through the ranks of researchers and who had some training/appreciation of science -- had been replaced by corporate beancounters and stockboosters. Now the chickens are coming home to roost. And it may be that if the government is taken over by corporations, all these decisions will be reversed, but the word will still get out that the science is bad and that if you take the pills you will die. Word does get around...eventually.
The two friends I know who were using hormone replacement therapy both had strokes. Am I going to use HRT? I don't think so.
People don't want to get sick and they don't want to die. They might risk it for a plate of fries, but not for a pill.
Joanna