NEW YORK (AP) -- Merck & Co. researchers privately sought to reformulate Vioxx in 2000 to reduce its cardiovascular side effects, even as the drug maker was publicly playing down a study that highlighted the pain relief medication’s potential heart attack risk, an internal company document shows. The widely publicized study in March 2000 found that patients taking Vioxx were five times more likely to have heart attacks than individuals using the generic medicine naproxen. Merck insisted at the time that this was a result of naproxen’s cardioprotective properties and not any defect in Vioxx.
