A mumps vaccine lawsuit says Merck is stonewalling, refusing to give evidence which the suit has demanded be produced. In response, Merck cannot or will not give proof that its mumps vaccine works as advertised. The drug giant is being sued by former employees who charge that the company faked data to keep U.S. government money coming to Merck for the mumps vaccine. Merck makes $1 billion a year in liability-free vaccine sales to the U.S. government.Related Story: Merk Shingles Vaccine? Really?
Merck Scientists sue Merck
Two former Merck & Co Inc scientists have accused Merck of falsifying tests of its exclusive mumps vaccine. The former employees charged in a court filing last summer that Merck refused to respond to questions about the vaccine’s efficacy.
Attorneys for the scientists asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Lynne Sitarski of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to make Merck respond to their discovery request. The request demands Merck give efficacy of the vaccine as a percentage. Merck is evidently unable or unwilling (or perhaps both) to do so.
Merck gives 50 Year Old Data
Merck has refused to answer the question, the plaintiffs’ letter said, and has been consistently evasive. Merck has instead used “cut-and-paste” answers, claiming that it cannot run a new clinical trial to determine the vaccine’s current efficacy. In lieu of meaningful evidence, Merck gave the petitioners’ data from 50 years ago.
Merck fails to offer proof of Vaccine’s Efficacy
The letter stated: “Merck should not be permitted to raise as one of its principal defenses that its vaccine has a high efficacy, which [Merck claims] is accurately represented on the product’s label, but then refuse to answer what it claims that efficacy actually is.”
Reuters reported that a representative of Merck could not immediately be reached for comment on the story.
Merck Whistleblower Lawsuit
Two former Merck scientists, Stephen Krahling and Joan Wlochowski, filed their whistleblower lawsuit in 2010. Their suit claims Merck, the only company licensed by FDA to sell a mumps vaccine in the U.S., skewed tests of the vaccine by adding animal antibodies to blood samples.
Merck used the skewed results, the scientists said, to fake test results that showed the vaccine 95 percent effective. More accurate tests would have shown a lesser success rate, said the lawsuit. The scientist plaintiffs said Merck’s falsified results also kept potential competitors out of the lucrative mumps vaccine market, because competitors could not match the inflated success rate Merck claimed.
Merck Mumps Vaccine Class Action Lawsuit
Based on the Merck whistleblowers’ lawsuit, others who bought the Merck mumps vaccine filed a proposed antitrust class action lawsuit in 2012 – Chatom Primary Care, based in Alabama, and two individual doctors. The two suits have been coordinated before U.S. District Judge C. Darnell Jones and Magistrate Judge Sitarski.
The case is United States ex rel Krahling et al v. Merck & Co Inc, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, No. 10-4374.
Related
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- Merck Shingles Vaccine CAUSES Shingles
- Shingles Vaccine? Really?
- Shingles Vaccine Lawsuit
- The Vaccine Lottery: Sacrifice the Children
by Matthews & Associates
