Hung jury in Merck's first federal Vioxx trial

A judge declared a mistrial today in the first federal lawsuit over the once-popular painkiller Vioxx.

Merck & Co. emerged from its third Vioxx trial today with a hung jury when the panel failed, in about 18 hours of deliberations over three days, to side with the drug maker or the widow of a 53-year-old Florida man who died after taking Vioxx for about a month.