Vioxx
Topol gained prominence as the first physician researcher to raise questions about the safety of rofecoxib (Vioxx). Topol was highly critical of Merck's handling of safety issues related to Vioxx. In a 2004 New York Times editorial, he wrote that "Merck finally had to acknowledge the truth, but only by accident." Topol also authored an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine, arguing that "neither Merck nor the FDA fulfilled its responsibilities to the public" and encouraging a "full Congressional review" of the situation.
In 2004, Bethany McLean, writing in Fortune, questioned Topol's own potential financial conflicts of interest. She reported that Topol served as a scientific advisor to a hedge fund which profited substantially by short selling Merck stock, which plummeted due to the concerns about Vioxx which Topol had publicized. Topol denied giving the hedge fund advance information, and subsequently severed his ties to industry, donating all such income directly to charity. In a 2005 JAMA commentary, Topol pointed to these allegations as an example of the complications that physicians can experience when associating with the investment industry, at the same time reiterating that "no true conflict of interest existed in this case."
In November 2005, Topol was subpoenaed in a class action lawsuit against Merck. He testified that Vioxx posed an "extraordinary risk", and that Raymond Gilmartin, former chief executive officer of Merck, had contacted the head of the Cleveland Clinic board to complain about Topol's work on Vioxx. Two days afterward, Topol was informed that the position as chief academic officer at the Cleveland Clinic had been abolished, and he was removed as provost of the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, which he had founded. The Clinic described the timing as coincidental. The New York Times described Topol's demotion as part of an "unusually public dispute" between Topol and the Cleveland Clinic's chief executive, Delos Cosgrove, and stated that Topol's criticism of Merck had focused scrutiny and criticism on the Clinic's deep and longstanding ties to the pharmaceutical and medical-device industries.
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