The site's disappearance provides a dividing line for a before-and-after study, but that study can't comment on the effect of other digital-piracy sources or on the impact of DVD piracy, and it is silent on piracy in countries where sales data weren't available or Megaupload wasn't popular.
During the deposition, which also included attorneys for the drugmaker, they showed Curfman an internal Merck document dated July 5, 2000--after the VIGOR manuscript was submitted to the journal, but well before the study went to press.
The study of 600, 000 births found three successive drops in babies born before 37 weeks - each occurring after a phase of a public smoking ban was introduced.