Vioxx update: This cardiologist’s testimony can be damaging to Merck

“Dr. David Sim, an Idaho cardiologist who has treated plaintiff Frederick ‘Mike’ Humeston since his heart attack, said he was able to eliminate many of the most common high risk factors for causing a heart attack.

‘He had a paucity of risk factors for having an event,’ said Sim at the second Vioxx trial in testimony provided through video deposition.

Sim said Humeston was not a smoker, nor a diabetic; that he did not have high blood pressure or abnormally high cholesterol levels; that he was not obese and did not appear to have a family history of heart disease.

‘It appears that there was very likely something else going on in his case that caused him to have this event,’ Sim said . . .

. . . Sim said tests performed on Humeston after what he called a ‘moderate’ size heart attack indicated that the heart was not diseased.

‘It did not look like he had generalized coronary atherosclerosis,’ said Sim, who added that Humeston’s heart has suffered diminished pumping efficiency since the attack.”

A heart attack with the paucity of risk factors and clean coronaries is uncommon. The most damaging testimony against Merck that I have read thus far.