Vioxx is back on the front burner.

After the rush of cases and news on the first few trials, Vioxx is now back in the news with the resumption of the cases in front of Judge Fallon down in New Orleans.

Link to the AP coverage is here. 

The current case is a retrial of the Richard "Dickie" Irwin case that ended in a mistrial after the jury couldn't come to a verdict. Interviews after the fact showed that it was a result of one lone juror who refused to side with Merck, indicating that the argument put on by the defense resonated with the cross section of jurors in that first trial.

This was the case during which the New England Journal of Medicine statement was released that some of the data in the VIGOR study had been omitted to make Vioxx look safer then it actually was indicated by the study. The resulting firestorm has split the medical and publishing community, and it will be interesting to see how plaintiff counsel Andy Birchfield handles this new evidence and information in front of a new jury. I am doubtful it will have a material impact, but it does assist the case on future trials i'm sure.  

We will resume our coverage of this trial, and will be adding a podcast from one of the attorney's shortly as well.