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A Merck & Co. lawyer told jurors its painkiller Vioxx wasn't responsible for an Idaho postal worker's heart attack as she extolled the integrity of company scientists and tried to cast doubt on the plaintiff's credibility.

In closing arguments, attorney Diane Sullivan said Frederick "Mike" Humeston wasn't taking the now-withdrawn painkiller long enough to face risk and that the Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based company's drug wasn't at fault.

Humeston, a 60-year-old postal worker from Boise, Idaho, is one of about 7,000 former Vioxx users to sue the manufacturer, which pulled the one-time blockbuster painkiller off the market last year after research showed Vioxx doubled risk of heart attacks and strokes if taken for at least 18 months. Humeston had been taking it for about two months when he was stricken.

Both sides' closings had been planned for Monday but haggling - which has plagued nearly every step in the seven-week trial - forced a late start, and Superior Court Judge Carol E. Higbee delayed Humeston's lawyer's statement until Tuesday.

After Sullivan's closing and out of earshot of the jury, lawyers from both sides bickered about parts of her statement. The judge agreed with plaintiff lawyers that some of Sullivan's comments were irresponsible; Higbee said she would make a statement to the jurors after the closing by Humeston attorney Chris Seeger.

"There is a line and you just don't cross it," Higbee told the Merck attorneys.

Speaking in a packed courtroom earlier Monday, Sullivan noted that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said earlier this year that Vioxx and other Cox-2 inhibitors don't increase cardiovascular problems with short-term use.

"That is the most important fact in this case," said Sullivan.

Cox-2 drugs inhibit the Cox-2 enzyme, which promotes inflammation, but protect users against stomach bleeding and ulcers, unlike other anti-inflammatory drugs.

Sullivan assailed plaintiff lawyers' assertions that Merck put profits before patient safety by misleading patients and doctors about Vioxx's risks. She said it defied common sense that scientists and doctors working at a company devoted to treating disease would take such actions.

"They've (plaintiff lawyers) accused these people (Merck scientists) of being killers," Sullivan said. "It is for you to decide whether the horrible allegations made in the interest of a lawsuit are true."

Humeston's credibility was also a key issue. Sullivan said there was doubt whether Humeston took the drug on the night of his heart attack, as he testified.

Humeston received a 30-pill Vioxx prescription in May 2001 but said he didn't use it all because it wasn't working. But he got a second prescription two months later, which Sullivan insisted made no sense if he had pills left over and didn't find the drug effective.

Humeston and his wife, who also testified, remembered that he had his last two pills the night he was stricken, but she couldn't remember when he took his last dose when asked at the hospital later. Humeston also didn't name Vioxx in the medications he was taking when he saw his doctor a month before his heart attack.

"Think about whether that adds up," said Sullivan.

She also said Humeston told his doctor that he didn't have any lingering effects from his heart attack, and that the reason he could no longer garden or hike was because of a knee injury he sustained while fighting in Vietnam.

"The only limitation he has is because of his knee pain," Sullivan said.

Agreeing with Humeston's lawyers that the best evidence in the case was Humeston himself, Sullivan insisted his physical condition - with elevated blood pressure, excess weight and stress from a dispute with his U.S. Postal Service bosses - triggered the heart attack, not Vioxx.

Last August, Merck lost the first trial over Vioxx when a Texas jury awarded $253 million in damages to the widow of a Vioxx user. Under Texas law, that will be cut to no more than $26 million, and Merck plans to appeal.

Does this remind you of the breast implant scam and cover up by these same lying harmaceutical corporations along with, Dow, Inamed, Mentor and the rest of those involved..YES! Remember, Diane Sullivan has been a leading atty., who has defended The BI corporations in this issue. frown..does this woman have a conscious? with warmth from my heart to yours,

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