Hewitt Blog

According to an AP report of a U.S. Senate study of the drug Avandia, the medicine caused 83,000 heart attacks from 1999 to 2007.

When I posted on this story yesterday, the scale of the potential number of claims against GlaxoSmithKline had not been revealed.

Republicans at this week's "summit" on health care ought to ask the president, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid how the Obamacare proposals will distribute the costs of this soon-to-arrive avalanche of Avandia litigation, and how single payer addresses any aspect of the massive costs associated with mass tort litigation.

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Read Matt Latimer's story on how Docs4PatientCare came to be.  I have a very small role in it, but Hal Scherz and his MD and other health care professional colleagues are amazing examples of what citizen activists can accomplish.

You can join themvia Docs4PatientCare.org.

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The studies reported on in today's New York Times on the possible connection between Avandia and heart attacks are certain to launch thousands of lawsuits.  The opening paragraphs:

Hundreds of people taking Avandia, a controversial diabetes medicine, needlessly suffer heart attacks and heart failure each month, according to confidential government reports that recommend the drug be removed from the market.

The reports, obtained by The New York Times, say that if every diabetic now taking Avandia were instead given a similar pill named Actos, about 500 heart attacks and 300 cases of heart failure would be averted every month because Avandia can hurt the heart. Avandia, intended to treat Type 2 diabetes, is known as rosiglitazone and was linked to 304 deaths during the third quarter of 2009.

If you or a family member has been taking Avandia and suffered a heart attack, this is more than sufficient cause on which to bring a lawsuit for damages.  If death resulted for the loved one, a wrongful death suit will follow.

This is not the problem with our tort system.  People who are seriously injured ought to be able to quickly recover their losses.  As my frequent radio guest, law partner and long-time plaintiff lawyer Joseph Timothy Cook likes to point out (yes, despite my frequent editorials about tort reform, I have a partner who represents plaintiffs) everyone is for tort reform until they or their family member has been injured.  So I'll write it again: If Avandia is really the reason why a patient is injured or dies, then GlaxoSmithKline should be obliged to do the best that can be done vis-a-vis the victims.

The problems with our system --problems left completely unaddressed by Obamacare-- are the roulette-like aspects of our tort law, under which thousands of plaintiffs' lawyers are already racing to attract any and all claims from anyone who thinks they may have taken Avandia and thinks their particular problem is related to it.  There are no barriers to entry to the courts other than the willingness of some lawyer somewhere being willing to roll the dice on a contingency basis. 

Nor are there many limits on certain types of damages that are subject to wild swings in the eyes of a jury, including punitive damages.  Everything depends upon the jurisdiction in which the case is brought.

Again, advocates of tort reform do not argue that the injured should not be compensated.  They should be and the courts can be made to work fairly in such settings as mass tort.  But right now they do not do so, or at least not very often.

While this legal avalanche begins to slide and then pick up velocity, the pharmaceutical industry will be watching another disaster to its bottom line take shape, with all the consequent side effects on current and future research and development.  Costs of all drugs will have to rise to cover the costs associated with all Avandia claims, good and bad.  Diabetics will still want relief so the demand won't slacken for the medicines that will help.  Their costs will simply rise.  Every dollar paid to victims,non-victims, and the lawyers for both as well as defense counsel will get passed right back to the consumer.

As the hard left edge of the Senate Democrats debate making a run at single payor, ask yourself exactly what that will do to prevent the costs described above from rolling through the system.  The answer is nothing.

 

My new Townhall.com column is posted.

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Hmmm. This report suggests that the left wing of the already left wing California Democratic Party isn't pleased with Jerry Brown.

Brown has been running a very disciplined campaign to date, and it is easy to suspect that this review owes more to the ideology of the writer and the audience than to an objective review of Brown's delivery.  Brown knows the only way to compete in November is to steer to the middle or even slightly to the right of it.  That sort of line just isn't going to go over well with Bay Area enviros.

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One segment with Mark Steyn on today's show (transcript here,) and an hour with Victor Davis Hanson (transcript here.)

Both are well worth reading, but you can only listen to them at The Hughniverse.  It is also the only place that you can absorb Lileks' Private Label.

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The president is rushing to the aid of imperiled Democratic appointee to the Senate, the nearly invisible Michael Bennet,  Bennet has been a reliable vote for Obama and Reid on Obamacare, the stimulus and every other hard-left lurch by the Administration, and this is his payback.

Former CO Lt. Governor Jane Norton is the front runner in the hunt to face Bennet in November.  It is a great day to send a contribution her way.  The president is doing a $25 a head fundraiser for Bennet, so that's a good number, which can be contributed online.  Obama is also doing a $1,000 a plate dinner, and if you can swing that, great.

Need encouragement?  Read The Washington Examniner's report from CPAC on the difference a year makes among the 7,000 delegates there.

Energy among the conservatives is a necessary precondition to winning in November, but so are campaign contributions to match the special interest dollars the president will raise to keep his hopes of Obamacare and cap-and-tax alive. 

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The New York Times' C.J. Chivers files this update on the battle and the challenge from Taliban snipers.

Dexter Filkins reports on the capture of more senior Taliban commanders.  The interrogation of Taliban top commander Abdul Ghani Baradar has led to a great trove of intelligence.  (Which is why the underpants bomber Abdulmuttallab ought to have been interrogated and not Mirandized after his capture.)

In my interview with him from Kandahar yesterday, Michael Yon praised SoldiersAngels as very much still in support of our troops, and support of SA is a great way to demonstrate that these troops in Afghanistan are still very much front of mind on the homefront.


 

From MarkDRoberts.com

From the Spiritual Exercises blog.

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I will have Tom Lewis from CrossInternational.org in studio with me today as a conveient way for anyone seeking to mark Ash Wednesday with a gift to the desperately poor.  You can do so online or via 1-888-488-2008.

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