$$million settlement pending...

PEARL ENA SKINNER-THOMAS left her New York home in 1999 to return to San Fernando to take care of her ailing and aged mother.

At that time, Skinner-Thomas was healthy. Months after she arrived, Skinner-Thomas started developing pains in her joints and the first thing she thought was that she was suffering from arthritis. She went to a doctor in San Fernando who started to see her on June 16, 2000.

To ease her pain, the doctor prescribed the tablet, Vioxx. She was then referred to another doctor in San Fernando on July 24, 2002. Not only did Skinner-Thomas experience joint pains, she started to suffer with all kinds of illnesses.

Her son, Steve Thomas, a shipping agent, said his mother started to experience lots of pain, she was getting small, and she was passing blood.

“Things got pretty bad around October 2004. My mother was vomiting a lot, she had consistent diarrhoea. She was passing out chunks of meat. Several tests were conducted on her, but nobody knew what was wrong.”

Thomas continued: “I remember, my mother was getting so small, one day, she told me to look in the wardrobe and pull out a certain dress. She used to look good in that dress, it fitted her well. She recognised that the dress was too big for her. She knew something was terribly wrong.”

The suffering continued for months until Skinner-Thomas suffered a heart attack and was rushed to the San Fernando General Hospital. She succumbed on February 28, 2005 and her death certificate confirmed that she died of cardiac arrest consistent with a diverticular disease. She was 76. Her ailing mother is still alive and celebrated her 100th birthday on July 1.

Skinner-Thomas’ funeral came and passed. But then, her son Steve, started reading and watching television about the drug Vioxx which was pulled from the shelves in the United States on September 30, 2004.

It was then that he remembered that Vioxx was prescribed for his mother and she had been taking the drug even after it was withdrawn from the market. He saw a number of symptoms caused by Vioxx and he remembered his mother. She suffered from a few — heart attack, bleeding, intestinal damage, heart burn, nausea, fluid retention and diarrhoea. He thought about it for a long time and then he contacted local attorney Thomas Cunningham about the matter.

In turn, Cunningham sought the advice of Orlando law firm, Mosely and Mosely. Former Trinidad policeman Mervyn Cordner, who works with Mosely and Mosely, was assigned to investigate Thomas’ complaint.

Cordner was in Trinidad last week pursuing the matter. He has already received letters from the two doctors and a pharmacy in San Fernando that Skinner-Thomas was prescribed Vioxx.

Having satisfied himself that Thomas has a good case, Cordner’s colleague in Orlando, attorney Orley Burey wrote a letter dated June 23, 2006 to Wilentz Goldman and Spitzer PA in New Jersey, the attorneys for Merck and Co, the manufacturers of Vioxx. According to Cordner, Merck’s attorneys have already responded and a settlement seems certain. “I don’t think we will be going to court with this,” Cordner added. “The number of cases already filed against Merck, this will be one for them to settle.” But he was not willing to say what the settlement figure could be, but recent cases in the United States revealed that millions of dollars have been awarded.

Cordner’s firm in Orlando already has three Vioxx cases and surprisingly two of them are on behalf of Trinidadians in Florida. In one case, a Trinidadian businessman in Fort Lauderdale died, and the other, a former policeman in Margate, suffered a heart attack. These three cases are in the settlement stages. Cordner said the Skinner-Thomas case is the first one from Trinidad, and he feels there may be more.

The manufacturers of Vioxx have had a very busy time legally, defending a number of challenges. Vioxx was a highly prescribed painkiller which was introduced in May 1999 by Merck and Co. The manufacturers claimed that Vioxx was safer on the stomach than commonly used painkillers. According to Merck, about 84 million people have been prescribed Vioxx between 1999 and 2004.

There have been several Vioxx settlements and verdicts. The biggest so far was US $253.4 million in damages on August 19, 2005 to a Texas widow of a man who died of arrhythmia or irregular heartbeat. He used Vioxx for only eight months. This was an award from a jury.

On April 21, 2006, a South Texas jury ordered Merck to pay US$7 million in compensatory damages and US$25 million in punitive damages to the family of a man who died after taking Vioxx.

On April 11, 2006, a jury awarded US$9 million in punitive damages to a New Jersey man. Five days before, the manufacturers were ordered to pay US$4.5 million in damages to a heart attack victim.

On May 26, 2006, lawyers filed 19 lawsuits in Colorado with persons claiming they suffered heart attacks and strokes after taking Vioxx.