Just days after Merck recalled Vioxx from the market, editors at The Journal discovered a diskette containing earlier versions of a manuscript for a crucial Vioxx clinical trial called VIGOR that they had published in November 2000.
According to a posting on the Journal's Web site, editors at the world's top medical journal found by examining a computer diskette that relevant data about Vioxx's risk to the heart compared with an older pain drug, naproxen, were deleted two days before the paper was initially submitted to the Journal.