Personal Injury Law

What if looting your retirement accounts weren't a crime?

By Steve Lombardi

Would you be mad if looting your retirement accounts weren't a crime?

We can all agree there are too many crimes being committed. The past several years the numbers of Wall Street scams that essentially rob your retirement savings have increased. Well, what if those on Wall Street said, "There are too many lawsuits and criminal charges being filed against stock analysts, CEO's and it's not good for the country. We want to do away with the crimes having to do with stealing your retirement savings."

Tort-deformers would go "Yippee! Let the party begin!"

Here is how preemption works in your hood. The drug companies make campaign contributions to Congressman. Congressman in turn appoints very conservative Judges and pass laws taking away a patient's right to sue a drug company for any drug that the FDA's approved to be sold. Now we all know the FDA is underfunded and can't possibly police all of the adverse events involving drugs and can't determine whether or not the drug companies are holding back on giving the FDA all of its negative research and clinical findings. Doctors don't always report adverse events; in fact they seldom do. You can see what is happening already, it's the fox watching the henhouse and the neighborhood newspaper boy trying to run the national news. Add in the conservative judges to interpret federal law and the drug companies have an extra layer of tort deform insurance against any claims you might bring. You can see the effects of federal preemption. This isn't rocket science - its politics, power and money. Three things you don't have much of so they engineer multi-million dollar marketing campaigns to make you believe "The sky is falling because of frivolous lawsuits!"

That is exactly what is going on in the pharmaceutical industry. To wipe out your claims before you ever know you've been hurt is what federal preemption is all about. Next up we'll have Wall Street CEO's clamoring at the tort deform trough.

Federal Preemption is the ultimate weapon to lock up the courthouse doors to any person injured by pharmaceutical company negligence. If enough congressional votes can be bought with campaign contributions drug companies won't have to worry about you showing up at the lawyers' office to ask that justice be done. Like reformed smokers talking about lung cancer listen to Dennis Quaid's testimony before the Congressional House Reform and Government Oversight Committee. Mr. Quaid's twelve-day old twins were overdosed twice with massive doses of Heparin while being "cared for" at a California hospital. The problem essentially comes down to confusion caused by similar labels being used for adult and infant doses. Now that he sees the danger of riding the federal preemption wave he's speaking out. What he says is to keep the FDA from stepping into lawsuits on the side of defendant drug companies.

"I used to think a big problem in this country has been frivolous lawsuits. But now I know that the courts are often the only path that families have that are harmed by a drug company's negligence." Dennis Quaid

So allow me to quote a client on this one: 'we are all one drug company mistake, one semi-car accident, one trip/slip-n-fall, one medical mistake, one surgical mistake, one motorcycle wreck, one work injury, one food poisoning, one negligent act from our own "frivolous lawsuit. When it happens to the one's you love they hardly seem frivolous. "

Know your rights. Protect your rights. Your rights are your most important asset.

Full post as published by Des Moines Personal Injury Lawyer on May 14, 2008 (boomark / email).