Rofecoxib is an anti-inflammatory drug which was marketed by Merck & Co., under the brand name Vioxx. The manufacturer voluntarily withdrew Vioxx from the market on September 30, 2004 as the internal studies conducted by Merck showed that the patients who consume this drug are more prone to cardiovascular problems than the patients taking other drugs. Before the withdrawal, Vioxx was administered to treat osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, acute pain in adults, primary dysmenorrhea and migraine attacks. Vioxx was administered orally and the lowest possible dosage is prescribed to the patients. Studies conducted on arthritis patients showed that the incidence of hypertension was more in patients treated with Vioxx than the other patients treated with some other drug like naproxen.Also, the study indicated that Vioxx can cause uneasiness and sometimes more severe side effects such as gastrointestinal bleeding that may result in hospitalization. The side effects were referred as “adverse cardiovascular effects” in the medical circles. Merck build up a very forceful marketing campaign for Vioxx when it was released to the market, resulting in massive sales revenue of the drug. Merck was immensely benefited by the Vioxx sales which were about $2.5 billion during 2003. People worldwide have been prescribed Vioxx ever since it was introduced as Vioxx was one of the commonly prescribed drugs in US. Due to the vast popularity of Vioxx, the withdrawal of Vioxx in 2004 was the biggest drug withdrawal at that time. Vioxx is generally known as NSAID, cox-2 inhibitor. There are many other accepted cox-2 inhibitors which was widely prescribed such as Bextra and Celebrex. Bextra, another cox-2 inhibitor marketed by Pfizer has also been withdrawn voluntarily from the market because of the side-effects leading to severe cardiovascular problems such as stroke and heart attack.
We all appear to get more receptive to the side effects of drugs and the severity of the problem is more in elderly people. Often this is difficult especially when we suffer from more than one disease during the same period. If you consume an anti-inflammatory drug for a longer period, your doctor will warn you of the most suspected side-effect, the ulceration of the stomach. It was earlier hoped that the new generation cox-2 drugs would cure the disease without any serious side-effects. It was believed that internal bleeding and other ulcer related dangers could be avoided with these drugs. If you are an elderly person, then you are at a greater risk as this may result in sudden occurrence of ulcer bleeding or slow blood loss. Read more »
