New pharmaceutical company dark deeds are being alleged down under.

An Antipodean class action over the health risks of Merck’s troubled drug Vioxx started at the end of March in Australia’s Federal Court. As has often happened in these cases, the legal action is bringing a host of alleged murky deeds to light.

Most mind-bogging is the claim that Merck “produced an entire journal — called The Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine — and passed it off as an independent peer review publication”. No more details are forthcoming from the Australian, the only paper to carry this story.

No publication of this name seems to be listed in PubMed or Google Scholar either.

Another report of the court case, in The Age, notes allegations that Merck “kept a list of ‘physicians to neutralise’ in a bid to dampen criticism” of Vioxx.

The case continues.

[Hat tip: Pharmagossip.]