Pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. (MRK) is halting worldwide sales of its blockbuster arthritis drug Vioxx, once viewed as possibly being able to prevent some cancers, because new data from a clinical trial found an increased risk of heart attack and stroke. Its stock price plunged more than 26 percent as the company said the recall will hurt its earnings.

They actually took the time today to announce that the recall would hurt it's earnings? I think that's a given, don't you?

Merck said Thursday that data from the trial showed the increased risk of heart attack and other cardiovascular complications began 18 months after patients started taking Vioxx. About 2 million people worldwide are currently taking Vioxx, according to Merck, and a total of 84 million have taken it since it came on the market with great fanfare in 1999.

I bet their chief financial officer is sweating right about now. We all know what happened with a few "other" drugs that ended up hurting people. The money changing hands was truly astounding.

The data comes from a three-year study aimed at showing that Vioxx at a 25 milligram dose prevents recurrence of polyps in the colon and rectum. Such polyps can turn cancerous. The trial was stopped after Merck discovered study participants had double the risk of a heart attack, compared to other participants taking dummy pills.

Question: Does taking "dummy pills" make you immune from dummies or does it make you a dummy? Enquiring minds want to know.

Medical experts advised patients to stop taking Vioxx and consult their doctor about alternatives, but said patients should not panic because the risk of a heart attack was still relatively low.

I haven't trusted any of the "new" drugs they keep advertising on TV anyway.

How can you trust a company that runs commercials that say to "ask your doctor", when, if the drug actually does anything, your doctor should already know?

Is it just me or does the fact they were still "running tests" on the drug make anyone else just a little bit nervous?

While the Republican Party prepared for the upcoming debates with a wonderful new "debate feed", which will automatically be updated with the facts when John Kerry attempts to mislead the American people, the Democratic Party was preparing for the debates themselves.

The Republican Party will be updating the debate feed live, while each of the debates is ongoing, and while they are doing that what will the Democrats be up too? Apparently, they will be playing bingo.

Isn't it nice to know that the Democratic Party, and John Kerry, are so comfortable with this campaign that they actually took the time to prepare a bingo card just for the occasion?

I have been looking forward to the debates for some time. I can hardly wait to see John Kerry sweat. (You know the orange dye is going to run under those studio lights).

The flurry of earthquakes at Mount St. Helens intensified further Thursday, and one scientist put the chance of a small eruption happening in the next few days at 70 percent.

Jeff Wynn, chief scientist at the U.S. Geologic Survey's Cascade Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Wash., said tiny quakes were happening three or four times a minute. Larger quakes, with magnitudes of 3 to 3.3, were happening every three or four minutes, he said.

New measurements show the 975-foot lava dome in the volcano's crater has moved 261/27 inches to the north since Monday, Wynn said.

"Imagine taking a 1,000-foot-high pile of rocks and moving it 261/27 inches. For a geologist, that's a lot of energy," Wynn said.

Wynn estimated there was a 70 percent chance the activity will result in an eruption.

I will go out on a limb and say there will be some sort of eruption before the weekend is over (within the next three days).

What do you think?

Flesh-eating bacteria cases, fatal pneumonia and life-threatening heart infections suddenly are popping up around the country, striking healthy people and stunning their doctors.

The cause? Staph, a bacteria better known for causing skin boils easily treated with standard antibiotic pills.

No more, say infectious disease experts, who increasingly are seeing these "super bugs" – strains of Staphylococcus aureus unfazed by the entire penicillin family and other first-line drugs.

Until a few years ago, these drug-resistant infections were unheard of except in hospital patients, prison inmates and the chronically ill. Now, resistant strains are infecting healthy children, athletes and others with no connection to a hospital.

Follow this link to read more about this nasty crap. I would not leave anything to chance if I were you. :wink:

Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson joined the campaign of Sen. John Kerry on Wednesday as a poll showed support for the presidential candidate slipping among black Americans, a critical Democratic constituency.