The public spat between the editors of the New England Journal of Medicine and the scientists who produced the controversial November 2000 study on Merck's Cox-2 painkiller Vioxx has intensified. On Wednesday, the journal's editors published a "public expression of concern," repeating their earlier charge that the research intentionally downplayed the risks of adverse cardiovascular events. In response, a group of outside researchers wrote in a separate piece that they stand by their research. The news comes two days after a New Orleans jury rejected a lawsuit that claimed a man who had taken Vioxx for less than a month suffered a heart attack as a result of taking the drug. Report