Pharmaceutical company Merck & Co. has agreed to pay $58 million as part of a multistate settlement of allegations that its ads for the once-popular painkiller Vioxx deceptively played down the health risks.

The agreement, announced Tuesday, also calls for Merck to submit all new TV commercials for its drugs to the Food and Drug Administration for review.

Maine’s share of the financial settlement equals $1.1 million, the office of Maine Attorney General Steven Rowe announced Tuesday.

“This is the largest money settlement that states have received in a consumer protection case against a pharmaceutical company,” Rowe said in a prepared statement. “We are pleased with the monetary amount of the settlement as well as with the advertising restrictions that Merck has agreed to.”

The money will be added to Maine’s general budget fund, Rowe said.

The civil settlement ends investigations by 29 states and the District of Columbia into Merck’s advertising practices involving Vioxx.

Vioxx was taken off the market in 2004 after research showed it doubled the risk of heart attacks and strokes. That step triggered thousands of individual lawsuits against Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based Merck. A pending $4.85 billion settlement would end the bulk of those personal-injury suits.

An estimated 12,000 Maine residents were taking the medication at the time it was withdrawn.

An FDA spokeswoman did not immediately return a telephone message seeking comment Tuesday.

For a period of seven years, the agreement calls for Merck to submit all new TV commercials for its drugs to the FDA for review and follow through with any changes the agency recommends before airing them. Additionally, for a 10-year period, Merck must comply with any FDA recommendations to delay television advertising for newly approved pain medications.

The company is also prohibited from “ghostwriting,” a practice in which people who work for a company or are otherwise connected to it write positive articles and studies about a company’s product.

Merck has not admitted any wrongdoing under the settlement and defended its marketing of Vioxx in a statement Tuesday.

“Today’s agreement enables Merck to put this matter behind us and focus on what Merck does best: developing new medicines,” said Bruce Kuhlik, Merck’s executive vice president and general counsel.

Most of the settlement cost will be covered by a $55 million pretax charge that Merck said it took in the first quarter.

In February, Merck agreed to pay $671 million to settle claims it overcharged the federal government’s Medicaid program for Vioxx and three other popular drugs and bribed doctors to prescribe its drugs. The agreement, announced by federal prosecutors, was one of the biggest U.S. health care fraud settlements ever.

In addition to Maine, the states included in Tuesday’s settlement are Arkansas, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

Merck shares fell 12 cents to $39.90 in afternoon trading Tuesday.

BDN writer Meg Haskell contributed to this report.