ADVANTAGE: Merck Does Say No

Abstract

LettersNovember 18, 2008ADVANTAGE: Merck Does Say NoHarold C. Sox, MD, Editor and Drummond Rennie, MDHarold C. Sox, MD, EditorFrom Annals of Internal Medicine, Philadelphia, PA 19106, and JAMA, Chicago, IL 60610.Search for more papers by this author and Drummond Rennie, MDFrom Annals of Internal Medicine, Philadelphia, PA 19106, and JAMA, Chicago, IL 60610.Search for more papers by this authorAuthor, Article, and Disclosure Informationhttps://doi.org/10.7326/0003-4819-149-10-200811180-00028 SectionsAboutFull TextPDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions ShareFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail IN RESPONSE:Dr. Edelman writes that ADVANTAGE could not have been a seeding trial because the Annals editors decided to publish it, which would imply that the trial had scientific value. We knew about the VIGOR (Vioxx Gastrointestinal Outcomes Research) trial (1), which was published in 2000 and compared Vioxx with naproxen in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. VIGOR showed that Vioxx had significantly fewer gastrointestinal side effects than naproxen. We published the ADVANTAGE trial (2) because it framed the same findings in a different way: It showed that the margin between the new drug and the comparatoralso naproxenwas narrow (5.9% ...