Evan, actually it appears that the battle is between Ted and this guy:

http://ragout.blogspot.com/

He’s got two posts on the subject of Vioxx here, and appears to be a statistician, not a lawyer. I’m afraid your renowned investigatory skills failed you again Anonymous:

A couple of highlights from the two posts:

“In other words, Calfee and the “tort reformers” think the views of a pharmacology professor at a top university, the FDA advisory panel, and the editors of major medical journals are “junk science.” With the whole medical establishment in the wrong, it’s hard to imagine where we can find any “sound science.” At the American Tort Reform Association and the AEI?”

“From the point of view of economic efficiency, I think Merck is going to end up paying too much, even leaving aside any bogus lawsuits that are filed. Merck ought to be liable for the excess heart attacks and other diseases they caused, not the illness that would have occurred if Vioxx had never been invented. But even though only about a third of the heart attacks suffered by Vioxx users were actually caused by Vioxx, there’s no way to tell which are which. So Merck will probably end up paying for all of them.

I don’t see any way around this, except for dividing the court awards by three, which might not be such a bad idea.”

CJD