Posted on 07/24/2004 5:40:58 PM PDT by neverdem
If I understand you correctly, you wish to allow the FDA to levy fines instead of allow patients to bring suits. I can't agree to that idea.
Let's say your mother takes a medication that causes permanant blindness. She and 250,000 other citizens are blinded. Do you think these folks should be unable to bring suit?
Sorry if I misunderstood you, but individual compensation is integral to a solution. I don't want to see folks given $10 million a shot, but it's a crime in and of itself to deny people recourse IMO.
The business about "the FDA approved it, so it must be safe" is B.S. Drugs are prescribed for uses other than what they were originally tested for *all the time.* Also, individuals are different - not everyone is going to react to drugs in the same way, and we *pay* physicians for their knowledge to prescribe and do procedures. If we could all be our own doctors, we wouldn't need them.
The tort system exists to protect the average person. It's an ancient Anglo-Saxon legal idea that doesn't deserve to be destroyed because of greedy opportunists.
Bush is trying to pin the "ambulance chaser" label on the donkey.
He's trying to flush out Edwards--trying to get him to comment on the subject...
I do admit he's doing something, but I can't defend the idea of denying individuals direct compensation. I do have one good idea though. Perhaps Bush could deny the government direct compensation from the sweat of my brow.
Once these parasites destroy our insurance, or make it unaffordable for the average person, they won't give a hoot about Anglo-Saxons' personal injuries. They might even have to find honest work, if they can remember how to do it.
The only way to save the tort system is to shepherd it--and that means to clean out the parasite culture of filthy worm-lawyers.
That's the only reason that all these ads for "wonder drugs" never go away. Too many fools out there buying the $hit up. Putting your faith 100% in doctors or lawyers is a risky business. That's how there came to be terms like "SHYSTER" and "QUACK".
There is a drug that can cause blindness that is used to treat refractory rheumatoid arthritis, lupus erythematosus and susceptible malaria. It's called hydroxychloroquine and Plaquenil, generic and trade names, respectively. Patients taking it need ophthalmologic, i.e. eye, exams every six months, not lawsuits. Without it some patients' medical conditions become worse, or they have to take more expensive or more toxic medicines.
Lawsuits based and won on junk science, ignorant juries and self appointed medical experts should go the way of the Do Do bird.
I still love the idea that physicians and other health care workers simply practice a common-sense defense against frivolous lawsuits: Absolutely refuse to see disgusting, obnoxious lawyers or their families.
This is an utterly bogus argument and you know it. The FDA would have long, long since pulled this medication if it caused 25 cases of blindness.
From the link:
As a consequence of the expensive efforts made by Mr. Edwards and his fellow malpractice practitioners, doctors often rush to perform Caesarean sections, with rates rising from 6 percent of births in 1970 to 26 percent today. Yet rates of cerebral palsy have remained stable in populations, regardless of how many Caesarean sections are performed.
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20040724-105240-6290r.htm
There's increased risk from the surgery and the anesthesia.
Not likely, if condom manufacturers are any example. IIRC, the last group compensated by the gov't were Japanese - Americans interred during World War II.
If you remember, we had a related argument about responsibility here in which I only stated the hazards from males having sex with men, and those predisposed to IVDA and bisexuality.
Was it proven that the drug company hid results from the FDA during the approval process? If so, that should trigger an exception from civil protection.
Even if we’ve empowered FMOA (Federal Motor Oil Agency) with the authority to micro-regulate engine oils, assuming they had the same history of being 90% fraudulent like drugs.
I see that the cost of bringing a new drug to market is $1.7 billion now. At some point, unless negligence or criminality is proven, I think it’s just our own tough luck that bad things happen to us.
bttt
Trying to equate a medication with known side-effects with one that wasn't know to cause them is kindof a red hering arguement bud.
There was a medication that was recalled about 3-5 years ago that caused heart damage. I only wish it had been recalled with less than 25 people damaged from it. You are wrong. The FDA doesn't always know a medication is causing harm to patients.
Yes it was proven.
I know of a hospital in my area that performs over 50% Caesarean births.
You can't sue the FDA for mega-bucks. Its immune.
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