Drug giant Merck and Co. manipulated data on its withdrawn drug Vioxx, minimized a significantly increased risk of death in patients taking its painkiller and used academic researchers to enhance the credibility of scientific studies largely written by Merck employees.

The allegations come from new research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The magazine said Merck offered to pay doctors to sign their names to Vioxx studies ghostwritten by medical publishing companies even if the physicians had little or no involvement in the research

Pharmaceutical firm Merck & Co. Inc. agreed Thursday to pay the federal government, 49 states and the District of Columbia $650 million plus interest to settle two whistleblower lawsuits alleging it fixed drug prices to defraud Medicaid and other healthcare programs.

Merck, however, said the settlement is not an admission of wrongdoing and liability. It maintained that its pricing, sales and marketing policies and practices are legal

In one of the largest drug settlements ever, U.S. drug manufacturer Merck and Co. on Friday was slapped with $4.85 billion in fines to settle up to 50,000 personal injury claims linked to its arthritis treatment Vioxx.

Vioxx led to heart attacks or ischemic strokes, where blood flow is blocked to the brain in many people who filed for the lawsuit. The company however pulled the drug from the market Sept. 30, 2004, after its researchers determined that it doubled risk of heart attacks and strokes

President George W. Bush has signed into law a bill that gives the FDA the power to require drug companies to do more studies on the safety of medicine, if it is necessary, and to mandate new warnings of labels.

The legislation Bush signed into law on Thursday also requires drug companies to make public the results of clinical trials showing how their drugs performed and authorizes the Food and Drug Administration to fine drug companies to force them to comply

The number of serious injuries and deaths reported to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from widely used medicines almost tripled between 1998 and 2005, an analysis of U.S. drug data found.

The report in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine, published by the American Medical Association, says that the number of deaths and serious injuries from prescription and over-the-counter drugs climbed from 34,966 to 89,842