Bush is Seeing to it: Soon You Won't Have a Leg to Stand on

"The FDA also relies on 'voluntary compliance' in asking drug companies to report evidence that their products might be harmful, and to withdraw drugs they believe might cause problems. Tragically, when the pharmaceutical giant Merck began to see evidence that its highly profitable arthritis drug Vioxx ($2.5 billion in sales in 2003) might be causing widespread heart problems, it ignored those findings. Dr. David Graham, associate director at the FDA's Office of Drug Safety, recently told Congress that by the time Merck withdrew the drug, Vioxx may have caused as many as 55,000 fatal heart attacks, or 18 times the death toll of the attacks of Sept. 11.
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However, even that last bit of protection [being taken to court] is now under attack by the so-called 'tort reform' movement, which seeks to dramatically limit the financial penalties that juries can impose in cases of gross corporate misconduct or negligence. Corporate America has made passage of those bills its highest priority at the state and federal levels. With government agencies already defanged, removing the danger of large court awards would leave private citizens with almost no recourse."

From: Citizens Stripped of Protection
by: Jay Bookman

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