In a 5 to 4
vote, the US Supreme Court has
absolved pharmaceutical companies, and over 80 percent of all drugs prescribed
in the US, of legal liability for a long list of ill deeds
including fraud, mislabeling, side effects and accidental death.
This decision
happened as a response to a lower court’s ruling concerning a victim who took a
pharmaceutical drug and had a severely adverse reaction that caused the patient
to be completely disfigured when the drug caused a flesh-eating side effect.
The side effect was known by the drug maker and yet, was not labeled. The lower
court ruled that the drug maker would have to label all future drugs with this
side effect but the Supreme Court left the corporations who make these drugs
completely exempt from future lawsuits, and said the victim ‘had no legal
grounds to sue.’
Karen Bartlett
tried to sue Mutual Pharmaceutical Company after taking an anti-inflammatory
drug called Sulindac due to a sore shoulder. It was this drug that caused
‘toxic epidermal necrolysis’ just three weeks after taking the pharmaceutical.
Her flesh began to peel off so badly it resembled a third degree burn.
How is it that
pharmaceutical companies can continue to put people’s health in jeopardy in
such atrocious ways without being culpable?
When Bartlett
sued in a New Hampshire state court, including the fact that there was no
warning about the possible flesh-eating side effect, she won the case and was
awarded $21 million in damages. The FDA then went on to force both Mutual
Pharma and Merck & Co. to include warnings on drug labels going forward,
but nine years later, the Supreme Court has overturned that ruling. The higher
court stated as reason for their verdict, ‘all generic drugs and their
manufacturers [over 80% of all drugs prescribed in the US] are exempt from
liability for side effects.’ The court has essentially given the FDA ultimate
authority over pharmaceutical use in the US.
One critic,
Michael Carome, director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, as reported
by Reuters, stated, “Today’s court decision provides a disincentive for generic
makers of drugs to monitor safety of their products and to make sure that they
have a surveillance system in place to detect adverse events that pose a threat
to patients.”
I dare say this
is not nearly a harsh enough criticism. Considering Big Pharma and Big
Agriculture are being given carte blanche to determine what is good for
people’s health and the FDA is bought and paid for by
special interest groups, we should be more than ‘surveying’ the
damage. Here is an obvious listing of conflicts of interest when it
comes to public health matters, and the incestuous relationship between Big
Pharma/Big Agriculture corporations and the FDA:
- Larry Combest (Chairman
of the House Agricultural Committee) and former Attorney
General John Ashcroft were the congressmen receiving the
most donations from Monsanto during the last election (Source: Dairy
Education Board)
- Prior to being appointed to
the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas (who put GW
Bush into office) was a lawyer for Monsanto.
- Anne Veneman was on the Board of Directors of Monsanto’s
Calgene Corporation, and is now the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.
- Former Secretary of Defense, Donald
Rumsfeld was on the Board of Directors for Monsanto’s Searle
pharmaceuticals.
- The governor of Wisconsin, and
the U.S. Secretary of Health, Tommy
Thompson, received $50,000 in donations from Monsanto while running
for his gubernatorial office.
“Agricultural biotechnology will find a supporter occupying the White
House next year, regardless of which candidate wins the election in
November.” - Monsanto In-house Newsletter, 2000
Source: Waking Times, Christina
Sarich, Staff Writer
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