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" ATLANTIC CITY , N.J. ( AP ) Merck & Co. won a major victory in the battle over its Vioxx painkiller Thursday when a New Jersey state jury found that the drugmaker properly warned consumers about the risks of the medication . All told , this region is rich in holdings as it is in its history , one of of the nation 's centers of collections with such scope and importance . This region is unique in its opportunity to " deal with the soul of the nation , " and to define and own the icons of our collective past , they said . ATLANTIC CITY , N.J. ( AP ) Hammering away at a handful of key themes , a lawyer for Merck & Co. urged jurors Monday to absolve the Vioxx manufacturer of liability for a heart attack suffered by an Idaho postal worker , saying the company thoroughly tested the drug and that federal regulators concluded it was n't a risk with short-term use.In closing arguments in the product liability case , Merck attorney Diane Sullivan said Frederick " Mike " Humeston was n't taking the painkiller long enough to have been at risk and that the Whitehouse Station , N.J. - based drug company cannot be held accountable for his heart attack . In the course of the semester , we will read a series of nineteenth-century novels alongside their twentieth-century counterparts in order to ask a number of difficult literary , historical , and theoretical questions : why have so many present-day authors found it essential to take up the politics and poetics of nineteenth-century fiction ? The social ambiguities present on the stage andd in the auditorium of the St. James 's Theatre were present in the entertainment industry as a whole . We will ask what it means to locate the origins of a major national conflict in literature , particularly literature that is not remotely concerned with either the nation or the conflict in question ; we will ask , too , what happens when we displace explanations of political events onto art . There was weight behind it , so much weight that , after opening the door three and four inches and peering inside , he had to put his shoulder to it in order to close it again . In order to address these questions , we will necessarily have a dual focus in this course , studying what these variously re-written works meant during the nineteenth-century in order to better address their significance to late twentieth-century ideas about authorship and culture . He made short and daring excursions in order to do this but he was ever careful to leave his retreat open , in case he should have sudden need of it . " The verdict capped a trial centering on Frederick " Mike " Humeston , 60 , of Boise , Idaho , who was stricken two months after he began taking the drug to ease pain from a Vietnam war knee injury.Merck 's lawyers appeared to be fighting a losing battle , repeatedly clashing with Superior Court Judge Carol E. Higbee , who denied key motion requests by them and threw out the testimony of Merck 's first witness on procedural grounds.On five different occasions , Merck asked her to declare a mistrial . " The facts and the science just do n't support that , " said Sullivan.Humeston , 60 , of Boise , Idaho , is one of about 7,000 former Vioxx users to sue the manufacturer , which pulled the one-time blockbuster arthritis drug off the market last year after research showed Vioxx doubled risk of heart attacks and strokes if taken for at least 18 months .