No good deed goes unpunished.

[flower]

Is it just me??? People get sick and take medicine...then like 10 years down the road ... they find it created some health problem and the lawyers start sending out form letters about a class action something or another...have you ever taken such and such drug. Do you now have a problem with your heart?
I was bleeding to death after my son was born...the doctor saved me with a clotting drug, and I landed up with a heart attack three months later. However my son is now near 40, and I'm still here to see my grandchildren...but the lawyers want me to sue the company that actually saved my life. I figured damaged is better than dead.
Then I see an ad on TV, the narrator gives all the side affects of a drug...I laugh because a non-fatal condition is offered to be treated with a drug that makes you want to kill yourself, or stop your lungs or heart from working...well at least you won't suffer that itchy dry skin anymore....I don't see any lawyer ads following that stuff.

 

[bang guy]

It's not just you.
Someone sued my father a long time ago because he broke one of their ribs. Their heart had stopped during a poker game and he was doing CPR. Yes, he had a few drinks before.

 

[flower]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bang Guy http:///t/389877/no-good-deed-goes-unpunished#post_3448741
It's not just you.
Someone sued my father a long time ago because he broke one of their ribs. Their heart had stopped during a poker game and he was doing CPR. Yes, he had a few drinks before.
Did your Dad lose the case???
I think they have passed a law called Good Samaritan to prevent ungratful people from doing this....what an outrage. Your father should have gotten a heartfelt hug and gushing thank you from every member of the family INCLUDING the person he saved. If ever I should have another heart attack (G-d forbid) may such a drunk man be by my side to save me...LOL...he can break any ribs he needs to.
I don't understand people...CPR is done on a dead body to try and bring them back to life....

 

[bang guy]

In a way, yes he lost. I guess he settled out of court. This was before good samaritan laws but it was in NY where we now have such laws in place.

 

[beth]

The ambulance chaser thing is not a result of just 1 person having a bad side effect. It is usually because several people have had a bad side effect, including perhaps even death. How would your family feel if you had actually died from that drug? How would they feel if you had died, and they learned that an alternative drug was available that you could have used that had a safer track record?
It is up to the pharmaceutical companies to perform enough QC to ensure safety, not release a drug and then see what happens. Likely the drug you took was pulled off the market, or there are attempts being made to pull it off the market.
While the class action law suits you describe totally benefits the lawyers, and not the injured party, still, don't assume that pharmaceutical companies are pro-your good health. They are pro-making money. They push new, expensive drugs on physicians. Ever see the guy with the tie and suitcase coming and going from your doctor's office? That is the pharmaceutical rep getting your doctor to push new drug freebie samples on patients. The doctor, in effect, is the advertiser for the new drug.
Best course of action is to stay away from new drugs, until they have been tested on other human guinea pigs for a few years.

 

[reefraff]

You leave out a important component. The FDA. The ambulance chasing bottom feeders can sue the companies but the government agency that has one of the most stringent testing standards for drugs in the world is insulated. Class action lawsuits are the spawn of satan.

 

[flower]

Bang Guy...I'm sorry to hear your dad settled...he should have fought tooth and nail, and make the biggest stink ever and sell the story to the news. Shame on the people who had the Chutzbah (nerve) to be so ungrateful.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Beth http:///t/389877/no-good-deed-goes-unpunished#post_3448764
The ambulance chaser thing is not a result of just 1 person having a bad side effect. It is usually because several people have had a bad side effect, including perhaps even death. How would your family feel if you had actually died from that drug? How would they feel if you had died, and they learned that an alternative drug was available that you could have used that had a safer track record?
It is up to the pharmaceutical companies to perform enough QC to ensure safety, not release a drug and then see what happens. Likely the drug you took was pulled off the market, or there are attempts being made to pull it off the market.
While the class action law suits you describe totally benefits the lawyers, and not the injured party, still, don't assume that pharmaceutical companies are pro-your good health. They are pro-making money. They push new, expensive drugs on physicians. Ever see the guy with the tie and suitcase coming and going from your doctor's office? That is the pharmaceutical rep getting your doctor to push new drug freebie samples on patients. The doctor, in effect, is the advertiser for the new drug.
Best course of action is to stay away from new drugs, until they have been tested on other human guinea pigs for a few years.
I understand 100% that money is the gear that turns the whole worlds business ethics...I'm afraid that when you are on the delivery table bleeding to death is too late to ask for a certain alternative drug....At that point we just have to trust our doctors, hopfully he/she is pro-our good health.
Was the drug given me taken off the market???? Well it took them 11 years to make the link between young mothers and heart attacks. 3 months after my son was born I had a massive heart attack, damaging the entire left side of my heart. No drugs were in my system, nothing to link the medicine to my condition. Until many other women suffered the same, and it became the one anomaly between them all. Then before it is pulled off the market...it has to be proven that that drug alone was to blame, and I wonder how long that takes.
I'm with you, I don't take a med until it's been on the market for a while to see if it does cause whatever side effect. The truth is that there are no safe drugs, they all alter our bodies and trick it into doing or not doing certain functions. Any medicine, over the counter, or from the doctor, will do damage to some organ of the body if it is taken long enough. The less we depend on them the better.
I still am annoyed at the constant letters I get in the mail about signing up for a class action suit. Nobody knew there was even a problem for 11 years, also did it cause the heart to fail for all who took it? I doubt it, it was my fate that I was 1 in 100, and at that time and place it was my doctors best choice.....it did save my life.

 

[stdreb27]

I had surgery and had to sign about 10 pieces of paper regarding the danger of the anesthesia, my brother calls it, the everything that went wrong when someone was taking the meds paperwork.

 

[reefraff]

My wife worked for a law firm that did legal defense which included a lot of malpractice for years. She now works for a litigation support company that deals with malpractice. You have people sign a release saying X is a known complication of this procedure and I hold the doctor, the hospital and it's staff blameless is X occurs. As we all know X happens and when it does not only do the people sue the doc and the hospital they sue the guy that dumps the trash and the girl who worked the receptionist desk the day the patient was admitted.
The reason prescription drugs are so expensive is A) Our FDA has the most stringent testing in the world and B) Even if a company meets all the FDA requirements to insure the drug is safe they can still be sued for hundreds of millions of dollars if it's later discovered that there was a side effect neither the company nor the government was able to determine through testing.
In short, Hang all the lawyers and things will get better.

 

[flower]

Quote:
Originally Posted by reefraff http:///t/389877/no-good-deed-goes-unpunished#post_3449187
My wife worked for a law firm that did legal defense which included a lot of malpractice for years. She now works for a litigation support company that deals with malpractice. You have people sign a release saying X is a known complication of this procedure and I hold the doctor, the hospital and it's staff blameless is X occurs. As we all know X happens and when it does not only do the people sue the doc and the hospital they sue the guy that dumps the trash and the girl who worked the receptionist desk the day the patient was admitted.
The reason prescription drugs are so expensive is A) Our FDA has the most stringent testing in the world and B) Even if a company meets all the FDA requirements to insure the drug is safe they can still be sued for hundreds of millions of dollars if it's later discovered that there was a side effect neither the company nor the government was able to determine through testing.
In short, Hang all the lawyers and things will get better.
I was told a little story....a lawyer lived in a village and had his practice...he nearly starved to death. Then another lawyer moved in, and had an office set up across town...now they are both filthy rich.

 

[reefraff]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flower http:///t/389877/no-good-deed-goes-unpunished#post_3449194
I was told a little story....a lawyer lived in a village and had his practice...he nearly starved to death. Then another lawyer moved in, and had an office set up across town...now they are both filthy rich.
True dat. When I was living in Montana the company was based in Missoula which is where the University with the big law school is. I was thinking about moving to a little town about 40 miles south and one of my clients was a insurance agency. I was talking to him and he told me if I moved to Hamilton I'd have a high rate because of the likely hood of hitting a deer driving in from Hamilton plus the longer commute. The rates in Missoula were high because there is a lawyer on every corner and even minor fender benders ended up in court. The classic no win situation.

 

[flower]

Quote:
Originally Posted by reefraff http:///t/389877/no-good-deed-goes-unpunished#post_3449197
True dat. When I was living in Montana the company was based in Missoula which is where the University with the big law school is. I was thinking about moving to a little town about 40 miles south and one of my clients was a insurance agency. I was talking to him and he told me if I moved to Hamilton I'd have a high rate because of the likely hood of hitting a deer driving in from Hamilton plus the longer commute. The rates in Missoula were high because there is a lawyer on every corner and even minor fender benders ended up in court. The classic no win situation.
LOL...in spite of it all we do need them, They look over our contracts for us, and draw up leases and such. Also when you really do need to sue they are there. Then there is the divorces, the adoptions, the house purchase....we have lots of needs for lawyers....Just not in my case.... a class action suit!...LOL No doubt we have some lawyers here on the site who love SW fish, we don't want any hurt feelings.

 

[mrdc]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bang Guy http:///t/389877/no-good-deed-goes-unpunished#post_3448741
Their heart had stopped during a poker game ...
Must have been one helluva hand!

 

[bang guy]

 

[travelerjp98]

It's just the greedy pharmaceutical companies making their money. They know about the side effects the second they develop the new drug. They put it out on the market, knowing that the side effects will only be evident in 10 yrs or so. 10 years later, somehow, they find a side effect. The pharmaceutical companies don't care about people's well being. They care about making them sicker and sicker, so that they can sell them more drugs and so called "treatments".

 

[reefraff]

Quote:
Originally Posted by travelerjp98 http:///t/389877/no-good-deed-goes-unpunished#post_3449441
It's just the greedy pharmaceutical companies making their money. They know about the side effects the second they develop the new drug. They put it out on the market, knowing that the side effects will only be evident in 10 yrs or so. 10 years later, somehow, they find a side effect. The pharmaceutical companies don't care about people's well being. They care about making them sicker and sicker, so that they can sell them more drugs and so called "treatments".
If they know so does the Federal government because the FDA is there looking over their shoulders while the studies are being done.

 

[cipher43]

My favorite drug commercial is for one of those anti depressant pills. One of the side effects is LYMPHOMA !!!!!!!!!!! My dad has gone through two bouts with Non Hodgkins Lymphoma and he will guarantee you that depression would be better. I think some of those drugs they hope you hear the good out of them and none of the side effects.
Bang was the guy your dad saved a friend? If he is/was then I would have told him he better learn a self Heimlich for next time cause I wouldn't touch him.

 

[flower]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cipher43 http:///t/389877/no-good-deed-goes-unpunished#post_3449598
My favorite drug commercial is for one of those anti depressant pills. One of the side effects is LYMPHOMA !!!!!!!!!!! My dad has gone through two bouts with Non Hodgkins Lymphoma and he will guarantee you that depression would be better. I think some of those drugs they hope you hear the good out of them and none of the side effects.
Bang was the guy your dad saved a friend? If he is/was then I would have told him he better learn a self Heimlich for next time cause I wouldn't touch him.
LOL...That method would not help a heart attack victim, only a choking victim, and it's good thing for all people to learn.

 

[travelerjp98]

Quote:
Originally Posted by reefraff http:///t/389877/no-good-deed-goes-unpunished#post_3449563
If they know so does the Federal government because the FDA is there looking over their shoulders while the studies are being done.
Bribery.

 

[oscardeuce]

Quote:
Originally Posted by travelerjp98 http:///t/389877/no-good-deed-goes-unpunished#post_3449441
It's just the greedy pharmaceutical companies making their money. They know about the side effects the second they develop the new drug. They put it out on the market, knowing that the side effects will only be evident in 10 yrs or so. 10 years later, somehow, they find a side effect. The pharmaceutical companies don't care about people's well being. They care about making them sicker and sicker, so that they can sell them more drugs and so called "treatments".
Care to quote your sources for this claim?
While not perfect we have some of the most intense drug testing in the world. Typically 3 phases and 100's of millions of dollars to bring a drug to market. Our life expectancy has increased in part due to "big pharma". Meds like TPA (clot buster) have saved many lives, yet have also killed a few.
Some side effects cannot be known until millions of doses have been given. There is not a study big enough to catch them. Then the lawyers get rich off a 1 in 500,000,000 adverse effect.
I give the companies cudos for the research and effort they put into making the human condition better.
I guess you suppose physicians keep their patients ill to keep them coming in to see them too?
O2, MD Board Certified Emergency Medicine