NEW ORLEANS (AP) – A federal jury on Wednesday cleared Merck & Co. in the July 2003 heart attack suffered by a Utah bank credit manager who had taken the once-popular painkiller Vioxx for 101/2 months.

Charles Laron “Ron” Mason, 64, of Salt Lake County, Utah, began taking Vioxx after years of taking anti-inflammatory drugs because of back pain.

The case was the 11th to be tried and the fourth in federal court.

Merck won two previous federal cases and lost the third. In state court, it has won three, and lost three. Jurors decided a fourth in Merck’s favor, but the judge later ordered a retrial.

Mason had no comment after the verdict was announced. “We thought we had proved the case. Obviously the jury didn’t agree,” said his lawyer, Ed Blizzard, who added that no decision had been made on whether to appeal.

“This is a satisfying verdict for Merck,” Kenneth C. Frazier, executive vice president and general counsel of Merck, said in a prepared statement.

Philip Beck, a Merck lawyer, noted that the plaintiffs’ steering committee had chosen Mason’s case as one they wanted to try early.

“It’s gratifying that we were able to defend against a case that the plaintiffs considered one of their strongest and against topflight lawyers,” Beck said.

Merck attorneys, in closing arguments Wednesday, said Vioxx had nothing to do with Mason’s heart attack because he took the once-popular painkiller for less than a year and stopped taking it four days before the heart attack in July 2003.

Blizzard countered that the drug’s effects didn’t go away between the Monday that Mason began taking a different painkiller for chest pains and the Friday of his heart attack.

Mason was seeking about $690,000 in lost wages and other damages.

U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon turned the case over to the jury of five men and two women Wednesday afternoon and they deliberated less than two hours.

Merck won two previous federal cases and lost a third. In state courts, it had won three, and lost three. Jurors in one state had decided a fourth in Merck’s favor, but the judge later ordered a retrial.

This trial brought a twist: during cross-examination by Merck attorney Tarek Ismail, Mason realized he hadn’t taken Vioxx for several days before his heart attack on July 25, 2003.

Rather than focusing on other reasons that Mason was likely to have a heart attack – his age, his sex, a relative who had a heart attack – Beck’s closing argument just mentioned them, concentrating instead on the four days without Vioxx.

“Vioxx cannot cause a heart attack if it is not in the system,” he said. “Vioxx is out of the system in a few days. Once it’s out of the system, it cannot have any effect.”

A physician brought as a witness for Mason testified that the plaque in Mason’s arteries had been forming for decades, and that Vioxx had nothing to do with either its formation or the break that brought on the blood clot which caused the heart attack, Beck said.

The realization that Mason hadn’t taken Vioxx immediately preceding the heart attack “was a surprise to us. It was a surprise to Mr. Mason. But it is not what this case is about,” Blizzard countered. “This is not about four days. It is about ten months that he took the drug.”

Blizzard said Merck withheld crucial safety information from doctors and patients, and from Karen Olson, the nurse-practitioner who prescribed it for him during a checkup in September 2002. Mason had taken anti-inflammatory drugs for years because of chronic back pain.

Olson testified that she had asked Merck representatives specifically whether Vioxx was safe for the heart, and was reassured that it was indeed safe, Blizzard said in his closing argument Wednesday.

Mason’s case is among more than 24,000 filed since Merck withdrew the drug from the market two years ago because of evidence that Vioxx doubled patients’ risk of heart attacks and strokes.

Another 15,000 potential plaintiffs have agreements temporarily suspending the time to sue, and Merck disclosed last week that a Canadian judge has approved a class action suit for residents of Quebec.

Mason’s case is the fourth to be heard before Fallon, who is handling pretrial matters for all federal lawsuits. The judge has said he hopes to be able to work out a settlement after the next; Merck has said it plans to try every case separately.

Merck shares rose 26 cents to close at $44.15 on the New York Stock Exchange.

The fifth federal lawsuit, that of Anthony Dedrick, 50, of Waynesboro, Tenn., is scheduled to go to trial in Fallon’s court Nov. 27.