vioxxVioxx Study Dismissed by U.S. Researchers as Marketing Ploy

A 1999 clinical study by Merck & Co. was meant to bolster a company marketing campaign and not intended to test side effects of the arthritis and chronic pain-killing drug Vioxx, as the company had claimed, researchers said.  The study, dubbed Advantage, was a so-called “seeding project” meant to promote Vioxx prescriptions before the drug had received Food and Drug Administration approvals, according to the researchers’ findings printed in the medical journal, Annals of Internal Medicine.

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