Of course Merck hid things, but there was an analysis of what happened and you can believe that the lawyers would not miss an opportunity to exploit any legitimate (and perhaps not so legit) data which would support such a high claim, or anything substantially higher than what has been determined. Does that let Merck off? Hell no. I never said that. I accept Merck as having done a despicable act for which they should be held accountable. It's not that people died of side effects per se because everything has the potential for harm. In medicine it's the concept of risk vs. benefit, but when there is deliberate obfuscation to prevent a rational analysis, then that's criminal.
A good part of what I do requires an intimate knowledge of the potential downsides of medication. With that background I see the claim is somewhat akin to saying that Obama doesn't like Arizona, that people have died there while he is in office and therefor he's responsible for x thousands of deaths. People would laugh at me and should if I made that claim, but because the topic is something not generally understood in depth (most certainly by Unz and the writer of the article) it's harder to see.