Consumer Law

Things That Aren't Funny

By Amanda

Okay, so humor is very subjective.  Like in 2004, George Bush?s joke during the Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner, ?those weapons of mass destruction must be somewhere,? he said as he looked under seat cushions in the Oval Office.  That "joke" was thought to be in pretty poor taste as those sent to war continued to die.

Then there was that skit put on by Merck employees about Vioxx, which came to the public?s attention through the recent class-action lawsuit now going on in Australia.

In the skit, employees use hairstyle puns to mock their ?tough year? ? you know, the one when they had to pull Vioxx off the market because it caused heart attacks and strokes in thousands of people.  For example, the ?hilarious? skit called Eric Topol, (the lead author in a study that linked Vioxx with an increase in cardiovascular events) Eric ?Toupe,?  joking that ?Toupe et al published an article in the Journal of American Mullet Association examining three Vioxx studies and one dreadlock study."

Except it was not a joking matter when Merck did publish articles from fake medical journals that sang the praises of their drugs without stating that the journal-looking articles had been paid for by the company.  

Now that is really not funny.

Full post as published by ThePopTort on May 21, 2009 (boomark / email).