Two leading heart experts called for urgent investigations on Wednesday into whether all painkilling drugs known as COX-2 inhibitors may raise the risk of heart attack in some people. They also called for a congressional investigation into whether regulators acted too timidly before last week's recall of Vioxx, Merck & Co's best-selling COX-2 inhibitor. Merck pulled the drug, developed to be a safer alternative to aspirin and similar drugs such as ibuprofen, after learning it more than doubled the number of heart attacks in patients taking it in one study. "I believe that there should be a full congressional review of this case," Dr. Eric Topol of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio wrote in a commentary in this week's New England Journal of Medicine. "The senior executives at Merck and the leadership at the Food and Drug Administration share responsibility for not having taken appropriate action and not recognizing that they are accountable for the public health," Topol added. "Sadly, it is clear to me that Merck's commercial interest in rofecoxib (Vioxx) sales exceeded its concern about the drug's potential cardiovascular toxicity." --More 2336 Local Time 2036 GMT
