John Honea went into semi-retirement at age 48, but now he's in full retirement after taking a drug called Vioxx.

Honea, now 52, was a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force until 2000. He served 30 years. He had physicals every two years that he says showed none of the warnings signs of heart disease. His blood pressure and cholesterol were in check. He never smoked, and there was no family history of cardiac problems.

"When I took my separation physical from the service, they didn't find anything wrong with me," he said. "I thought I was in pretty good shape."

Honea grew up in Dallas and spent his summers camping, hiking and fishing in Colorado, Wyoming and Montana.

After graduating from high school, he joined the Air Force, just as his father had before him. He was stationed in Texas but took assignments at bases across the United States, Germany, Italy and Spain. During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, he went to the United Arab Emirates.

Honea, who stands 6 feet tall, was always athletic, playing baseball, basketball and golf. In the Air Force, he frequently ran 5 miles a day.

In his mid-30s, he developed lower back pain that degenerated into two bulging discs. Over the years, he had physical therapy and surgeries to treat them. And he learned to live with the pain.

In November 2000, a surgeon put him on Vioxx, made by pharmaceutical giant Merck.


It was one of a new class of pain-relieving drugs called cox-2 inhibitors and was widely prescribed.

By this time, Honea's two kids were grown. He even had grandchildren. So Honea and his wife of 31 years began building a retirement home in a golf-course community in Montrose, on Colorado's Western Slope.

Honea then got his dream job as a seasonal park ranger at Ridgway State Park.

On May 19, 2002, he helped a group of rangers pull buoys from a lake. His chest and arms ached the next day. "I thought I'd just strained something," he said in a plain-spoken Texas drawl. "I thought I'd just overdone it with those buoys."

When his jaw tightened up, he finally decided to go to the emergency room. There, doctors confirmed he had had a heart attack.

"That was like a jolt out of nowhere," Honea said. "That was the last thing I was expecting them to tell me."

Fortunately, the blockage was in a minor artery and could be treated with angioplasty. A year later, Honea had a stent installed to reopen one of his major arteries. He's now on several medications to keep his blood pressure extremely low. It also keeps him in a permanent lull: "It's like having a governor on your heart."

He had to quit his job as a park ranger. He can't go on long hikes anymore. So he reads newspapers and watches congressional hearings on cable TV.

He knows that in May 2000 - before he started taking Vioxx - top Merck executives declined to study evidence that Vioxx might pose heart risks. He also knows that in September - more than two years after his heart attack - Merck finally pulled Vioxx from the market.

Last week, a House committee released documents that indicate Merck told its 3,000 salespeople to avoid discussing the cardiovascular risks of Vioxx.

Honea is just one of about 20 million folks who took Vioxx after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved it in 1999. FDA safety officer David Graham last year said that Vioxx has caused as many as 140,000 heart attacks and strokes and killed up to 55,000 people.

Merck is facing lawsuits from thousands of people but has said that it will defend itself against each case. The causes of heart attacks, after all, are usually complicated and difficult to pinpoint.

"I have mixed feelings about medical malpractice suits," Honea said. He believes Vioxx has taken years off his life, so he has contacted a Denver malpractice attorney, who is preparing his case.

Honea said that in the 1970s, he had a friend who drove a Ford Pinto. Honea often rode in that car, and he remembers how long it took Ford executives to admit that the Pinto's gas tank was prone to exploding in minor rear-end collisions. 

"This is like Ford Motor Company and the Pinto all over again," he said. "This is a corporation putting profits over any reasonable regard for people's lives."

Al Lewis' column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at 303-820-1967 or