Way back in 1995, Michigan enacted a bullshit law that says that if you’re injured by any drug approved by the FDA, you cannot sue the manufacturer of that drug. This law has fucked countless Michigan citizens and relatives of Michigan citizens who died from defective drugs. Michigan is the only state in the Union with such a law, and perhaps coincidentally, Michigan has one of the worst economic climates in the Union.
So check out this shit that Larry McQuillan wrote:
But personal injury lawyers have found a sympathetic audience in the Michigan House of Representatives, which voted recently to repeal the FDA defense. Unbelievably, [I CAN’T FUCKING BELIEVE IT – Ed.] legislators also moved the goalposts by making the change retroactive to 1996.
If personal injury lawyers are allowed to destroy the reform, it will expose the pharmaceutical industry to lawsuits retroactively. Faced with the possibility of spending billions on lawsuit defense, drug companies will scale back research and development spending.
The industry will also likely pack up and move out of Michigan to places with more sensible tort laws. Michigan, already in dire straits, will suffer further harm and drive out more jobs. This claim is not exaggerated -- most vaccine manufacturers have already left the United States for Europe because of lawsuit abuse in America.
Ending drugmakers' exemption will cost jobs | Detroit Free Press | Freep.com
Hey Larry! I’ve got some bad news for you. The pharmaceutical industry has already pulled out of Michigan:
…Pfizer pulled out of Michigan for good in 2008, citing the need to save money. The company's Ann Arbor campus alone — a two million-square-foot space — employed 3,600 people, mostly for research and development. The site was the worldwide capital of the company's research and development. Now, a third of its employees have been relocated, another third found pharmaceutical jobs outside of Michigan and the rest were left to fend for themselves.
Meg Young: Why Pfizer fizzled | The Michigan Daily
Larry of course knows that pharmaceutical companies have been eliminating jobs in Michigan since that great “reform” law was passed. But he won’t tell you that. That’s because he’s a fucking liar. Want proof?
Note how he writes that most vaccine manufacturers “have already left the United States for Europe because of lawsuit abuse in America.” Note how he doesn’t breathe a word about the Vaccine Compensation Injury Fund. Here’s what the Department of Justice has to say about the program:
The VICP is a program designed to encourage childhood vaccination by providing a streamlined system for compensation in rare instances where an injury results from vaccination.
Over the past 12 years, the VICP has succeeded in providing a less adversarial, less expensive and less time-consuming system of recovery than the traditional tort system that governs medical malpractice, personal injury and product liability cases. More than 1,500 people have been paid in excess of $1.18 billion since the inception of the program in 1988.
. . . .
Another positive result of the program is that costly litigation against drug manufacturers and health care professionals who administer vaccines has virtually ceased. Although an individual who is dissatisfied with the Court’s final judgment can reject it and file a lawsuit in state or federal court, very few lawsuits have been filed since the program began. The supply of vaccines in the U.S. has been stabilized, and the development of new vaccines has markedly increased.
DOJ Vaccine Compensation Program - About the Program
I say that Larry is a liar for not telling you about the vaccine program. It could be that he just has no idea what he’s talking about and is instead a corporate whore pushing an anti-lawyer, anti-lawsuit message.
I’d bet money that if Larry got a prescription for say, Viagra, and it made him go blind, his attitude about pharmaceutical lawsuits would change.
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