Texas Injury Lawyer & Attorney : Bailey Law Firm : Automobile Accidents, Product Defect, Consumer Right

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“I have come to understand that money from the pharmaceutical industry can shape the practices of nonprofit organizations that purport to be independent in their viewpoints and actions,”  is a statement by Republican Senator Grassley written to the Psychiatric Association. My response is "Oh really?" The age old axiom of politics is Follow the Money. I'm glad someone in charge is stumbling across the impact of big money on the medicine we take every day based on nothing but child-like faith of the pharmaceutical and medical industry. 

In 2006 money from the pharmaceutical industry accounted for about 30 percent of the association’s $62.5 million in financing. About half of that money went to drug advertisements in psychiatric journals and exhibits at the annual meeting, and the other half to sponsor fellowships, conferences and industry symposiums at the annual meeting.

As obviously wrong is this situation is, it is a small sin compared to the comedy of FDA approval of new drugs on the market. The FDA doesn't have the resources to study the effects of new medications. It uses the studies of the companies who stand to gain billions of dollars and are under intense pressure to beat a competing company to make it to the market with a similar product. Many of the scientists and medical doctors go to work for these companies after a tenure with FDA.

The Texas Supreme Court, financed in great part by pharmaceutical companies, has held that if the FDA approves a drug, a consumer can not sue for injuries from using the drug no matter how harmful it turns out to be. The United States Supreme Court is considering the same pre-emptive law to disadvantage victims of unreasonably dangerous drugs. Attorneys for those hurt are fighting to find legal theories around these roadblocks.

The drug giants have produced good products for us but it is immoral for them to use their wealth to take advantage of the fiduciary relationship to the patients they make a profit to protect.

So, what's the answer?