mr. speaker , first let me thank chairman sensenbrenner for his leadership in bringing us to this historic point .  he and i have been working on this for over 6 years .  it has passed the house of representatives three times before .  due to his good work , it has now passed the senate and we have the opportunity to send it to the president .  he is waiting to sign it and we should n't waste any more time .  now the truth about class action fairness and vioxx .  critics have been arguing in the press that s. 5 should be rejected because it will hurt consumers bringing vioxx cases against merck .  the truth is , however , that this legislation will have absolutely no effect on vioxx suits , and here is why .  the majority of personal injury cases brought against merck are individual cases that would not be affected by the bill in any manner whatsoever .  these include more than 400 personal injury cases that are part of a coordinated proceeding in new jersey state court .  none of these cases will be affected by the bill because they are neither class actions nor mass actions .  merck has been named in more than 75 statewide and nationwide class actions involving vioxx , but only a small percentage are personal injury class actions .  to the extent these cases do involve personal injury , most were already brought in or removed to federal court because each potential class member 's claims exceeds $ 75 , 000 .  thus , these cases are removable to federal court under the old rules .  there are a few cases which plaintiffs have joined together in mass action-type cases against merck .  however , not a single vioxx case has been brought against merck in state court by more than 100 plaintiffs , one of the requirements for removal to federal court under the class action legislation .  thus , there is no reason to believe that the mass action provision would affect any vioxx-related cases whatsoever .  most of the class actions have been brought against merck .  since the legislation is not retroactive , it would absolutely have no effect on the 75 class actions already filed against merck in the wake of the vioxx withdrawal .  