Objectors to the $4.85 billion national Vioxx settlement vanished almost as quickly as they had materialized, with one group withdrawing its protest and a second thrown out by a judge.

A group that includes several prominent Texas plaintiff attorneys filed a motion Dec. 22 to withdraw its earlier motion for changes to the settlement agreement that would have allowed the attorneys to represent clients both inside and outside the settlement. In petitioning for withdrawal without prejudice, the attorneys said an amended order postponing a requirement to declare whether their clients were all in or all out of the settlement gave them part of what they wanted, including recognition that U.S. District Court Judge Eldon E. Fallon has the authority to amend the terms of the settlement. The group also said they had entered into potentially fruitful negotiations with the parties.

A Connecticut federal judge threw out another objection a day earlier. The judge said New Haven law firm Stratton Faxon’s complaint that the settlement required it to violate professional ethics asserted nothing more than a difficult attorney-client decision that did not rise to a matter in controversy.

“Because Stratton Faxon seeks a prospective ruling advising it about a how a Connecticut ethical rule will operate under given hypothetical state of facts, and because the defendants are not adverse to the plaintiffs in this case, no case or controversy exists,” the court said.

The very provision that seems most objectionable to attorneys, however, may also be dearest to Merck’s own heart. One of the attorneys who negotiated the settlement said Merck’s first concern — which occupied the first several months of negotiations — was that there not be a “Round Two” in Vioxx litigation. The reference was to the widespread belief that American Home Products (AHP), now Wyeth, in settling claims over its diet drugs in 1999, inadvertently financed attorneys for a second wave of litigation over the drugs that only recently began drawing to a close.

By binding the attorneys, Merck hoped to avoid financing a second round of litigation against itself.