Doctors while reviewing roughly a million Merck documents for plaintiffs’ lawyers preparing for trials in Vioxx lawsuits who werre involved in providing expert testimony in some of the Vioxx cases discovered that some of the “research” that Merck had done in 1999, was actually disguised as research but was in fact intended as marketing.

The Technique, known as “Seeding Trials”. The objectives of the clinical trial  which Merck called “ADVANTAGE” were to provide product trial among a key physician group to accelerate uptake of Vioxx as the second entrant in a highly competitive new class,” the memo states.

Investigators involved in the study are unaware that the purpose of their participation is to sway sales of the new drug.