The tort bar can boast of only limited success in its assault on Merck in the Vioxx sweepstakes, but the lawyers have undoubtedly succeeded at one thing – scaring the pharmaceutical giant into removing a promising drug from the market. With a fourth Vioxx trial now underway, the contrast between tort greed and the public good couldn’t be any clearer, underscored by the release this week of a study suggesting that Vioxx and other so-called Cox-2 inhibitors, like Celebrex, could be effective at helping to prevent breast cancer.

The study, conducted by three researchers at the Ohio State University College of Medicine and Public Health, found that women who used a Cox-2 drug for two years reduced their risk of developing breast cancer by an average of 71%. Patients who took 25 milligrams of Vioxx every day reduced their risk by 64%, while patients who took 200 mg of Celebrex cut their risk by 83%. Patients who took regular doses of older, less potent nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen and naproxen (the active ingredient in Aleve) also enjoyed some risk reduction, but the results were less dramatic and patients needed to take the medicines for a longer period. The study was funded by grants from Pfizer, which manufactures Celebrex, and by the National Cancer Institute.

This latest study is another link in a lengthening chain of research investigating whether drugs like Vioxx can be used for many conditions beyond the arthritis they were originally marketed to treat. Some of the most promising research has been in the field of cancer prevention. The drugs work by blocking a particular enzyme that causes inflammation but that is also linked to some cancer cells. Almost from the time the Cox-2 inhibitors were developed, scientists have been exploring their ability to prevent tumors. The cardiac risks of Vioxx itself first became clear in a study that was actually investigating whether the drug can protect against colon cancer.

Researchers are still debating whether Cox-2 drugs are more dangerous than older drugs or whether instead the older drugs turn out to be more dangerous than anyone had realized. But in our lawsuit-happy day and age, Merck executives apparently decided that they couldn’t take the risk and pulled Vioxx from the pharmacy shelves. Now thousands of lawsuits threaten the company and drag on its bottom line, contributing to massive downsizing.

Meantime, researchers continue uncovering signs of benefits that could be worth the cardiac risk for some patients. It’s a common phenomenon in medicine. Even thalidomide, infamous for causing birth defects when administered to pregnant women for morning sickness in the 1950s and 1960s, has been found effective against leprosy and multiple myeloma, a type of cancer, and is now legal in America under tight controls. Thanks to the tort-bar culture, Vioxx is no longer available to arthritis patients who needed a treatment that wouldn’t cause ulcers, and other Cox-2 drugs like Celebrex are under a litigation cloud. The latest research on the additional potential benefits of these medicines for women living in fear of breast cancer only highlights how dangerous trial lawyers are to Americans’ health.