New Report Offers More Evidence That Trial Lawyers' Aggressive Soliciting Of Clients Poses Health Risks

Law Firm-Run Web Sites Purporting to Provide Scientific Medical Information
Often Lead Patients, Families to Make Dangerous Treatment Choices

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 10, 2008	Contact:
	Darren McKinney (202) 682-0084

Washington, DC - Urging congressional oversight and more immediate regulation by state bar associations, American Tort Reform Association president Sherman “Tiger” Joyce (pictured below) today called a new study concerning Internet searches for medical information the “latest evidence that the personal injury bar’s brazen trolling for clients is taking an increasingly negative toll on society.”

The report, published Tuesday by the New York-based Center for Medicine in the Public Interest (CMPI) and posted at http://drugwonks.com/CMPI_Insta_American_Study_01_08_08.pdf, demonstrates that many Americans are dangerously misled when conducting Internet searches about illnesses or medical conditions from which they or their loved ones suffer.

“CMPI shows that these search results are dominated by personal injury lawyer-operated Web pages, shamelessly designed to gin up clients for speculative individual and class action lawsuits,” Joyce said. “Rather than getting unbiased, scientifically sound information, visitors to these lawyer-run sites unknowingly get skewed, misleading information that can frighten them away from life-saving drugs or treatments.”

Among other examples, the CMPI report cites an article based on “questionable methodologies” and a biased accompanying editorial published in the New England Journal of Medicine in May 2007 which made allegations against the FDA-approved and widely prescribed diabetes drug AVANDIA. According to the report, unfounded media stories and Internet postings quickly proliferated, as did trial lawyer efforts to drive class action litigation against the drug’s maker.

“Despite all of the scientific evidence that demonstrates AVANDIA effectively treats diabetes, patients may choose not to take the medication based on the information they find online, even though the benefits of the medication far outweigh the risks,” CMPI’s report explains.

A recent Merril Lynch analysis also found that “Some patients appear to have simply been scared off . . . AVANDIA” and “alternative oral medications. This is unfortunate,” the analysis said, “given lack of glucose control among diabetics and the growing diabetes epidemic in the country.”

ATRA’s Joyce pointed to another similarly targeted drug, the beneficial anti-psychotic ZYPREXA. “Blind to the irony, perhaps, personal injury lawyers have also alleged a heightened risk of diabetes for those who used this drug,” he quipped.

“More than half of 402 randomly surveyed psychiatrists who treat patients with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia indicated that some of those patients stopped taking ZYPREXA or reduced their dosage upon seeing lawyers' advertisements,” Joyce said, citing a June 13, 2007 Associated Press story.

“It’s bad enough when trial lawyers such as Bill Lerach unlawfully pay their lead plaintiffs in shareholder class actions that ultimately accrue to the detriment of most shareholders and a targeted company’s employees,” Joyce argued. “It’s even worse when personal injury lawyers conspire to phony up chest x-rays for fraudulent asbestos and silica lawsuits that crowd court dockets and delay justice for truly ill plaintiffs.

“But these tort lawyer Web sites are now putting the very health and lives of Americans at risk. So ATRA is calling on all state bar associations to promptly rein in lawyers’ aggressive and misleading client solicitations on the Internet. Minimally, bar associations should require that all lawyers clearly and conspicuously identify themselves on Web sites they sponsor. Congress has some responsibility here, as well, and we’d urge appropriate committees to conduct oversight hearings when lawmakers return for the coming session,” Joyce concluded.

 

Audio Interview with ATRF President Tiger Joyce on "Judicial Hellholes 2007"

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