Some 20 million Americans took Vioxx in the five-and-a-half years it was being sold. It may have contributed to thousands of heart attacks and sudden deaths. Three government investigations are now underway to determine just how and why Vioxx became a prescription for trouble. Correspondent Ed Bradley reports.

When Vioxx first hit the market under a barrage of TV commercials, it was hailed by Merck as a miracle drug.

It was one of a new class of drugs called COX-2 inhibitors that could reduce all kinds of pain, especially arthritis, without causing serious gastrointestinal discomfort and bleeding - a risk seen in older drugs like aspirin, Aleve and Advil.

With annual sales of about $2.5 billion, Vioxx was one of the most successful new drugs ever. It was prescribed to people like 39-year-old Janet Huggins, who had been diagnosed with early stage rheumatoid arthritis.

According to her medical records, Huggins was in otherwise excellent health. But that was until Sept. 25, when she died of a sudden heart attack - less than a month after she started taking Vioxx. She was buried on the very day Merck took Vioxx off the market. Huggins' husband Monty is suing Merck, holding the company responsible for her death.

"The morning of her funeral, I had just gotten dressed and my sister walked in and told me that she had just seen on the news that Vioxx had been pulled from the market. And when she told me that, I can't explain what hit me," says Monty Huggins. "I dropped straight to the floor. It was just a shock, because this is a 39-year-old female that's in good shape and is healthy and she's got a heart attack."

He says that if the drug had been taken off the market a month earlier, "I believe my wife would be here."

But was it Vioxx? Merck says it believes that many of the deaths being attributed to Vioxx could be explained by any number of other causes. The company insists it has acted responsibly, saying it withdrew Vioxx as soon as it received what it says was surprising data from a clinical trial it was conducting, called the APPROVe (Adenomatous Polyp Prevention on VIOXX) study, designed to determine if Vioxx could prevent colon polyps.

Instead, Merck found something potentially worse: Patients taking Vioxx for longer than 18 months were twice as likely to suffer a heart attack or stroke than those taking a placebo.

Merck declined a request from 60 Minutes for an on-camera interview, but CEO Raymond Gilmartin explained the company's decision in a Sept. 30 news conference..."


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