Alas, Poor Spammers

“Pharmaceutical giant Merck's surprise withdrawal yesterday of its anti-arthritis drug Vioxx (also known as rofecoxib) caught more than just Wall Street by surprise. Although most media attention was focused on arthritis sufferers and other patients who were taking Vioxx for general pain relief, spammers — who prefer to call themselves “bulk email providers” — were dealing with their own anxiety issues.

“Vioxx is an important drug for us”, says acknowledged spam king Pone Leray. “There are literally millions of people out there with arthritis and similar conditions who have been able to find relief using Vioxx. Now we can't market it to them anymore. We've had to temporarily suspend many of our mailings while we figure out how to best deal with the problem.”

Indeed, reports from several spam monitoring organizations indicate that there's been a slight but noticeable reduction in spam worldwide due to the Vioxx recall.”

...from a news website