The pharmaceutical company Merck and Co. Sharp and Dohme (MSD) has announced the retreat of the market of his anti-inflammatory Vioxx ®, which sells in different drugstores of the country under medical prescription.

The decision of the company has been based of that a study done with this medicine for three years determined that those persons who were consuming it have a major risk of suffering cardiovascular, such problems as "a heart attack or a brain haemorrhage", according to the report of the proper American company. This increase of the risk with regard to the placebo does not mean that the persons who take it are going to have a cardiac or cerebral infarction but it has more risk of having them.

The Robecoxif (Vioxx ®) boils away in the whole world for million persons to calm the pain of chronic illnesses as rheumatism and the arthritis. The medicine has been acquired by approximately 277.000 persons in Spain in the last 12 months.

According to sources of the company MSD "we Have tackled this action because we believe that it goes in interest of the patients", said the president and managing director of Merck, Raymond Gilmartin, in the bulletin.

Also, he added that although "it would have been possible to continue the Vioxx commercialization with a brochure that should incorporate the new information, we have come to the conclusion that the responsible way to be taken was the voluntary retreat" of the product, since there are alternative therapies and for the doubts caused by the new information.