The Corporate States of America
Jul 27th, 2005 at 6:26 pm by Susie
How’s this for a blatant gift to Big Pharma?
What is liability protection for the makers of Vioxx doing in the medical malpractice bill the US House is scheduled to take up this afternoon?
The dirty little secret of HR 5 – a bill that is ostensibly about lowering doctors’ insurance premiums — is that it gratuitously shields drug companies from liability, even though that has nothing to do with the rates physicians pay for insurance.
This is especially sad and ironic considering the first Vioxx trial going on in Texas has uncovered the shameful marketing tactics of the drug industry. For instance, Merck produced a document called “Vioxx Dodgeball” to train its drug reps how to “dodge” questions from physicians about the cardiac risks of Vioxx.
They “dodged� concerns about safety, and now Congress is going to allow them to “dodge� liability for their deceit.
the best government money can buy.