Vioxx Settlement Plan Heads for Key Deadline.

The article focuses on a 2008 deadline which is approaching for the $4.85 billion settlement of a case related to Merck & Co.'s painkilling drug Vioxx. A discussion of the probability that the majority of plaintiffs will agree with the settlement, and of plaintiffs who are threatening not to agree with the settlement, is presented. A history of the Vioxx lawsuit, and of the negotiations which led to the settlement, is offered.