Lawyer, clairvoyant

All week long we’ve been meaning to write an item about an ad we saw in which a law firm chasing Vioxx lawsuits also mentioned another drug in the same class, Pfizer’s Bextra, in the same breath—as though it were as bad.

At the time, it seemed like piling on—not that there should be anything surprising about that, coming from personal injury lawyers—because the evidence about problems associated with Bextra wasn’t nearly so damning, and it hasn’t been yanked from the market. That was going to be the central thesis of our funny little item. (Not to overthink it, or anything.)

But then we woke up this morning and decided the ad was simply prescient, because now the Food and Drug Administration is adding a label to Bextra warning that after heart-bypass operations, patients have a heightened risk of “heart and blood clotting problems.” Oh, and the FDA also strengthened its warning about “life-threatening skin reactions.”

We jotted down the firm’s number. It’s (866) 950-9000.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

December 10, 2004 | Permalink