One of the things that needs to be included in any reform of healthcare insurance is tort reform. We have reached the point where the cost of malpractice insurance for doctors is through the roof, and the huge settlements awarded in lawsuits do not always go to the injured parties–the lawyers take a very large chunk. I don’t begrudge lawyers earning a living (I raised one), but I do think that we have lost some of our perspective when it comes to damages and who collects them.<\/p>\n
All this relates to an article in Friday’s Daily Caller<\/a>. The article deals with the role lawsuits have played in the practice of American medicine. The article begins with the story of the British medical profession and the idea that the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine was causing autism. Medical researcher Andrew Wakefield was working on a lawsuit and came up with ‘evidence’ to support his case. His studies have been proven false since then. <\/p>\n The article reports:<\/p>\n “The most disturbing effect of this fraud has been to convince many parents that no vaccines of any kind are worth getting for their children. According to one publication, “vaccination levels plunged as low as 80% in the U.K…and in 2008, measles was declared endemic in Britain and Wales.” Infections are surging elsewhere, too. The BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL article reports that in California last summer, 10 babies dies from whooping cough “in the worse outbreak since 1958.””<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n As I said, the bogus research was put together for use in a lawsuit. The article also cites a drug called Bendectin. This is a drug used to cure morning sickness. The drug is illegal in the United States, but used in Canada and Europe. The article states that the drug was taken off the American market because lawyers used faulty medical conclusions to sue the company that manufactures it.<\/p>\n I am not a medical researcher and do not know what the standards for medical research are, but it seems to me that a medical researcher who does research for an attorney might not be entirely objective in his research.<\/p>\n <\/em> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of the things that needs to be included in any reform of healthcare insurance is tort reform. We have reached the point where the cost of malpractice insurance for doctors is through the roof, and the huge settlements awarded in … Continue reading \n