After Martha Lawler lost her job at Atlantic Bell in 1993, she fell behind on her house payments. Then her troubles really started.

A lawsuit has been filed in Montgomery County Circuit Court against Ford Motor Co. and Continental General Tire of North America in connection with an SUV accident earlier this year that left a Montgomery woman paralyzed.

Attorneys representing 39 U.S. law firms met at a New Orleans restaurant and chose two lawyers-one of them from Alabama-to lead federal lawsuits targeting Merck & Co.’s Vioxx painkiller.

U.S. Senator Charles Grassley said he wants to find out why the Food and Drug Administration didn’t pursue safety concerns about Merck & Co.’s painkiller Vioxx, the biggest drug ever recalled.

At least five medications now sold to consumers pose such risks that their sale should be limited or stopped, said a government drug reviewer who raised safety questions earlier about the arthritis drug Vioxx.

Congress is looking into whether the Food and Drug Administration shirked its duty by ignoring safety concerns about Vioxx raised by its own reviewers and outside scientists.

The American public is "virtually defenseless" if another medication such as Vioxx proves to be unsafe after it is approved for sale, a government drug safety reviewer told a congressional committee Thursday.

When Roy Vagelos stepped down 10 years ago as Merck's chief executive the company had, in his words, "become the largest pharmaceutical company in the world based on an unprecedented flow of important new products".

Andy Birchfield, a Shareholder with the Montgomery law firm Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis and Miles, P.C. will appear on 60 minutes on Sunday, November 14th.

Attorneys representing 39 U.S. law firms met at a New Orleans restaurant and chose two lawyers to lead federal lawsuits against Merck & Co. on behalf of people claiming injuries because of the company’s Vioxx painkiller.