Silent MI's Fair Game for Vioxx Suits?

If you never felt your MI but took Vioxx, could you sue Merck anyway and get free medical monitoring anyway? Well, maybe:

Traditionally, New Jersey law has covered medical monitoring for people exposed to toxic chemicals. But lawyers point out that monitoring also has been allowed in some pharmaceutical cases, such as one several years ago involving the diet drug combo Fen-Phen.

“It makes logical sense that you should have the ability for medical monitoring,” says E. Drew Britcher, a past president of the American Trial Lawyers Association-New Jersey, which filed a “friend of the court” brief. “The question is whether or not you get a heart condition from a medication as opposed to getting cancer from a chemical. It’s still the same concept. … This should be a remedy available.”

Pharmalot has the story.

-Wes