On Balance, Do You Think Merck Is an Ethical and Socially Responsible Company? Why or Why Not? How About Pfizer?

First of all, lets talk about Merck Drug Company and its ethical and social responsibility…

Merck was one of the most reputable drug companies by that time. Merck’s innovative ability, its reputation along with the meticulous submission of documents allowed the company to secure FDA approvals much faster than its competitors. When Merck released its drug Vioxx for the treatment of arthritis, the drug’s effectiveness combined with an effective direct to consumer marketing campaign made it a blockbuster drug with $2.5 billion in sales.

But what about really warning signs of Vioxx and its key roles in warding off cardiovascular disease? Actually there were some warning signs, which ignored by company’s administration or signed as less important. It was Dr. David J. Graham Associate Director for Science and Medicine in FDA’s Office of Drug Safety, who first warned about harm of Vioxx drug which was product of Merck company, in November 18, 2004 in his testimony.

First, Merck thought the decision to recall Vioxx was an example of the company’s high ethical standards. Gilmartin told Fortune that he never had any doubt about his course of action: “Withdrawing the drug was going to be the responsible thing to do. It’s built into the principles of the company to think in this fashion , but then they got the concept of relative risk has been posed as key to decisions on drug benefits and dangers. Take disabling arthritis for example.

Also the study, an analysis of a database of 1.4 million Kaiser Permanente members, found that those who took Vioxx were more likely to suffer a heart attack or sudden cardiac death than those who took Celebrex, Vioxx's main rival. Based on their findings, Graham and his collaborators linked Vioxx to more than 27,000 heart attacks or sudden cardiac deaths nationwide from the time it came on the market in 1999 through 2003, but all this data was also ignored and Company did not remove the drug from market compelling arguments. After can we...