Vioxx Case Analysis

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Atlanta Christian College *

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BUSI510

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Philosophy

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Dec 6, 2023

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docx

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1 To Rework or Shirk? A Merck Dilemma In the case of Vioxx and the Merck dilemma, there are many stakeholders. First, the Merck shareholders who have substantial investment in the development of Vioxx and are counting on future Vioxx profits. They are also exposed to possible legal and marketplace sanctions, as well as reputation damage that can be challenging to overcome and affect all Merck products. All Merck employees are invested so far as this impacts Merk’s ability to stay in business and maintain its current workforce. Additionally, the employees who specifically work on or contribute to Vioxx are exposed to collapse of their project and possibly employment, tarnished reputation, and may be required to participate in legal proceedings if they occur. The Vioxx users are stakeholders this dilemma, separated as those who are experiencing positive from those experiencing negative results. As an extension of that, the personal networks of the Vioxx users have stake in the positive or negative outcomes the Vioxx users are experiencing. I would include families, loved ones, care givers, and prescribing doctors in the personal networks as it relates to this case. Any governing agency that is responsible for overseeing drug administration will be involved in the investigation and enforcement of Vioxx as needed. This would mostly apply to the FDA but could possibly extend to federal and state medical boards and malpractice insurance providers in the cases of Vioxx related deaths. All pharmacies issuing Vioxx will be required to be compliant with the warning or recall. Finally, if 60 Minutes goes forward with airing this scenario, they make themselves a stakeholder. Any information they release can hugely impact public opinion or make themselves liable for slander. If we consider this case using a utilitarian approach, I believe we would move forward by issuing the warning but keep Vioxx on the market. Following the principals of utilitarianism, it is permissible to have such a variance in the distribution of welfare. Although some users are

2 To Rework or Shirk? A Merck Dilemma dying, the great majority of users are having very positive experiences with Vioxx. It could even be pointed out that the users who died were having positive benefits from Vioxx until their tragic demise. Cafferkey (2015) highlights this utilitarian approach by saying, “the net positive welfare for the most will sometimes require that some people get a great amount of welfare and some people get a little amount, or worse yet, get a bad result from an action” (p.176). I do think a similar case could be made to say the utilitarian approach would opt differently and pull Vioxx from the market due to the impact on all stakeholders to include the risks and outcomes of lawsuits, stock price plummeting, and bad reputation. The challenge with making this decision from a utilitarian perspective, is how to measure benefit worth. How to do you assign value to positive health benefits for users, negative stock values for shareholders, investigating lawsuits for the FDA, and other outcomes for each stakeholder. How can one quantify such things as happiness or stress? It is essentially impossible to reach a true utilitarian decision without being able to identify which outcome adds up to the most pleasure and least pain. From a Biblical ethics standpoint, I think the decision to preserve life and pull Vioxx is the clear and best answer. If Merck gets in front of this and shows truth and righteousness, it could have a big impact for appealing to humanity and redemption. Focusing on justice for the patients’ safety above all, might preserve some customer faith and make forgiveness possible. As the Bible teaches, “ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Alternatively, to delay or only warn users is deceptive and will give the appearance of choosing profits over people. To warn users, “that there is a small chance of heart problems” is misleading. Death is not a problem; it is the worst possible complication and outcome. While it may be a small chance, the outcome is

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