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Jury hung in Merck trial

HOUSTON: A judge declared a mistrial on Monday in the first federal lawsuit over the once-popular painkiller Vioxx. Merck & Co. emerged from its third Vioxx trial on Monday with a hung jury when the panel failed, in about 18 hours of deliberations over three days, to side with the drug maker or the widow of a 53-year-old Florida man who died after taking Vioxx for about a month. The jury resumed what was to be its fourth day of deliberations on Monday, but within about 20 minutes, District Judge Eldon Fallon called the jurors in and reminded them they had agreed to reach a verdict in a ``reasonable time. The panel was at odds over whether Merck was liable in Richard ``Dicky'' Irvin's 2001 death and whether the company failed to issue safety warnings. — AP

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