JUN. 27 1:55 P.M. ET For more than eight months, Vioxx eased the pain and stiffness in Robert Ernst's hands. But eight days after Ernst, a 59-year-old personal trainer, clocked 62 miles on a bike, he died in his sleep from arrhythmia, or an irregular heartbeat. Believing Vioxx caused her husband's death, Carol Ernst will take on pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. in a Texas court in July. After the delay of a similar case in Alabama, it will be the first of 2,400 Vioxx lawsuits filed nationwide to go to trial. Merck removed Vioxx from the market in September 2004 after an in-house study showed that taking Vioxx doubled the risk of heart attack and stroke for patients who took it for 18 months or more.   Merck, the world's third-biggest drug maker, said 20 million people took Vioxx after it first went on sale with great fanfare in 1999. The

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