Herbert: A Gift for Drug Makers

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/14/opinion/14herbert.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=

Vioxx, Celebrex, Prozac. ...

With all the problems and the bad publicity that drug companies have been facing recently, you might think that this would not be a good time for the Bush administration to toss yet another bonanza their way.

But the administration is like an ardent lover in its zeal to shower the rich and powerful with every imaginable benefit. So tucked like a gleaming diamond in proposed legislation to curb malpractice lawsuits is a provision that would give an unconscionable degree of protection to firms responsible for drugs or medical devices that turn out to be harmful.

The provision would go beyond caps on certain damages. It would actually prohibit punitive damages in cases in which the drug or medical device had received Food and Drug Administration approval. We know the F.D.A. has failed time and again to ensure that unsafe drugs are kept off the market. To provide blanket legal protection against punitive damages in such cases is both unwarranted and dangerous.

[necso]

1. Herbert's been writing some good stuff.

And I love the included quote: "Now primarily a marketing machine to sell drugs of dubious benefit..."

Too true, all of it. Big Pharma now invents "medical conditions" to match the effects of developed drugs (prescription drugs) that didn't do what they were developed to do.

And the super-hot prescription (Viagra) is being bought for a side effect. (It has its very own website.)

Corporate lootocracy, pure and simple. -- They have already largely subverted the government, legislative and executive (including the watchdogs), to their ends. And now they want to get a good grip on that last troublesome branch of government -- the judicial.

And one can only surmise that the same thing is going on across the board, this only being a little harder to see sometimes (in the case of other corporate interests).

Every part of the neocon agenda is complete bs. Their agenda really only benefits those that are in a position to smash, grab and run (from responsibility and accountability). -- Everyone else is being played for a chump.