The trial pits Frank Schwaller, whose 52-year-old wife Patricia Schwaller died after using Vioxx, against the drug's maker Merck Pharmaceutical.

Fresh off a federal court defeat in December, Birchfield is laying out for Madison County jurors pretty much the same argument he has in the past, that Vioxx caused heart attacks and that "Merck worked hard to keep the truth quiet."

Whether the maker of Vioxx withheld information about the drug's risks was the point of opening statements Wednesday in a crowded Madison County courtroom.

Pharmaceutical giant Merck ignored warnings and tried to cover up risks associated with its blockbuster painkiller Vioxx, a lawyer Wednesday told the jurors in the case of a Granite City woman who died suddenly of a heart attack after spending 20 months on the drug.

Merck & Co. put profits ahead of consumer safety by hustling a blockbuster arthritis medicine to market, then routinely denied the drug's potentially lethal health risk.

Vioxx lawyers shape case for jurors in opening arguments. Opening arguments are underway in the Metro East's first Vioxx trial.

It must be a bit lonely for the Independent to be pushing for an affirmation verdict from the Alabama Supreme Court in the notorious ExxonMobil case, when just about every major newspaper in Alabama has called the state's case everything from ludicrous to ridiculous.

The upcoming wrongful death lawsuit, Schwaller vs. Merck & Co, will be the first Vioxx case to be tried in the Illinois Circuit Court in Madison County and the first anywhere in the Midwest. It is possible that this case will set the tone for how Merck will handle cases in the future.

The state government has agreed to pay $12.5 million to settle lawsuits by 48 girls who said they were abused at a youth detention center near Birmingham.

Plaintiff's attorney John Driscoll of Brown & Crouppen will try to convince a jury that Vioxx caused or significantly contributed to the death of Frank Schwaller's wife in Madison County's first trial against Merck over the recalled arthritis pain reliever.