--- Carl Remick <carlremick at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> >
> >Wall Street Journal - August 22, 2005
> >
> >Side Effects
> >
> >Merck Loss Jolts
> >Drug Giant, Industry
> >
> >... Jurors who voted against Merck said much of the
> science sailed right
> >over their heads. "Whenever Merck was up there, it
> was like wah, wah, wah,"
> >said juror John Ostrom, imitating the sounds
> Charlie Brown's teacher makes
> >in the television cartoon. "We didn't know what the
> heck they were talking
> >about." ...
>
> Bingo. That may be the best example ever of my
> longtime view that the Age
> of Enlightenment hasn't improved all that
> enlightening and the technocratic
> society is ultimately ruled not by rationality but
> faith.
>
> Laypersons and even scientists outside their narrow
> specialty are simply not
> equipped to understand and judge disputes involving
> advanced technologies.
rarely the issue in mass tort case. Not, as I understand it, in this one. Wasn't the real question, failure to warn? Merck had info about a risks that ir chose not to disclose. What the jury was asked to decide was, would a reasonable persaon have disclosed those risks?
Now, the lack of causation is a defense. The defense can argue that the plaintiffs' injuries were due to something else. Insofar as this is an issue of scientific or technical knowledge, the judge is supposed to exclude mumbo jumbo, and then it is up to the lawyers and the experts to make themselves clear. If they can't do that, the lawyers are not earning their paralyzingly high hourly billing rates, nor the exper their fees. So if the case was decided agaisnt Merck because the expertss ounded like they were talking Sanscript, I would not blame the jury.
In fact, I have a lot of apprecriation of the intelligence and seriousness with which juries take their jobs, having been involved some a good many jury trials and having heard the juror's explanation in some cases. I don't think jurors are idiots and the cases involving complex technical matters should be left solely to specialized agencies.
> This is one thing that makes today's world so
> bewildering and frightening to
> so many people, i.e., that their lives are dependent
> on technologies -- from
> PCs to pharmaceuticals -- that are completely
> baffling to most users. Let's
> face it, if the FDA is scratching its head over the
> risk/benefit profile of
> some whiz-bang new pharmaceutical, there is no way
> that you,
If the FDA is scractching its head, the drug won't bne approved. Our review process is the most rigorous in the world -- too rigorous, I think. I think they should screen out the baddies at the level they do in Canada or Europe, insist on super clear warnings in large print with really plain language, maybe with physician liability for failure to warn, and let people decide based on that on on widely available information.
the patient in
> the street, are going to be able to parse the
> pharmacological dynamics of
> that pill in your hand; you just have to swallow it
> and have faith it will
> do you good ... like, say, a communion wafer.
Then you deserve what you get. I think that people are grownups and have to take some responsibility for what they put in their bodies. And if the Pharma companies lie or the Drs don't disclose, though ought to be slammed.
>
> It's no wonder that the technocratic society shows
> so many signs of
> imploding and that so many people are reverting to
> the (also
> unsatisfactory!) world explanations offered by
> history's great know-it-alls,
> established religion.
I don't follow this reasoning.
jks
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