July 22, 2005 --> Merck witness disputes diagnosis in suit By Associated Press  |  July 22, 2005 ANGLETON, Texas -- The head of Merck & Co.'s epidemiology department testified yesterday that an emergency room doctor was too quick to blame a heart attack for the death of a Texas man at the center of the nation's first Vioxx-related lawsuit to go to trial. Dr. Nancy Santanello, the company's representative at the trial, said the doctor made a ''presumptive diagnosis" when Robert Ernst died in his sleep in 2001 and was rushed to a hospital. Had Ernst been alive, the doctor could have performed tests to confirm whether he had suffered a heart attack, she said. ''The ultimate diagnosis comes from an autopsy," Santanello told Merck attorney Gerry Lowry in her fourth day on the witness stand. Ernst's autopsy said he died of arrhythmia, or irregu

more...