Judge: Merck claimed privilege for ads, press releases -- Newsday.com

Judge: Merck claimed privilege for ads, press releases -- Newsday.com: "Advertisements, press releases and studies already admitted into evidence were among hundreds of thousands of documents which Merck & Co. attorneys claimed they could not release, the judge overseeing all federal lawsuits involving the painkiller Vioxx said Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Eldon E. Fallon said he went through nearly 500,000 documents over the past two weeks _ checking many twice _ and probably will release many of them on Monday to the steering committee representing thousands of federal court plaintiffs." [Newsday]