Hot coffee, McDonalds and tort reform have become strange bed-fellows since a verdict was delivered against the McDonalds Corporation by a jury; for severe injuries to 79 year old Stella Liebeck, caused by spilled coffee.

To people who believe Corporate America needs protecting, the McDonalds coffee case became a poster child for what they claimed was wrong with the civil justice system. Of course, the tort reformers version provides only pieces and parts of the real story – just enough for them to weave it into a new story that stands for what they need it to illustrate. But, do not be fooled; there are few real facts in the tort reformers’ version of the case.

At the recent Sundance Festival, a former lawyer, Susan Saladoff, has built a bonfire around a new film she produced called “Hot Coffee”. The film is a documentary that does not take pieces and parts of the McDonalds coffee case. Rather, this is honest and factual testimony of what really happened and the very understandable reason why a jury would deliver a verdict of $2.8 million against the McDonald’s Corporation for spilled coffee.

The real facts of what happened that day in 1992, are significantly different from those that tort reformers fabricate to fit their own needs:

• Ms. Liebeck was NOT driving; she was a passenger in a car driven by her grandson.
• Ms. Liebeck did NOT place the coffee on the dash and the spill was not caused by her driving off while the coffee sat on the dash.
• Ms. Liebeck was simply removing the plastic lid from the coffee cup when it spilled.
• The ultimate verdict entered by the court was NOT $2.8 million.
• Ms. Liebeck was found 20% comparatively negligent; a finding by the jury that, based on the facts, was probably not unreasonable.
• The court system worked properly. Ms. Liebeck’s award for physical injuries was reduced from $200,000 to $160,000 for her share of comparative negligence.
• The verdict of $2.6 million for punitive damages awarded by the jurors was ultimately reduced to $480,000.

Did the jury get wildly out of control in awarding the original $200,000 for Ms. Liedeck’s physical injuries? Ms. Liedeck suffered 3^rd degree burns over 6% of her total body. Her physicians treated severe third degree burns to Ms. Liedeck’s inner thighs, perineum, buttocks, and genital and groin areas. This 79 year old lady was hospitalized for eight days and underwent numerous skin graftings and débridements (scraping of dead skin tissue away from undamaged tissue).

Before any lawsuits were filed, Ms. Liedeck asked McDonalds to compensate her for her injuries and made claim for $20,000. McDonalds offered to pay Ms. Liedeck $800.

What were some of the things that McDonalds alleged and evidence heard that could have made their callous conduct more unappealing to the jurors and to the court?

• McDonalds claimed that Ms. Liebeck was old and, so her injuries were worse, but they should not be liable for the severity of her injuries simply because she was old.
• Ms. Liebeck’s clothing may have held the hot coffee against her skin causing the burns and, presumably, that this 79 year old lady should have stripped quickly in her grandson’s car to avoid the severe injuries she suffered.
• McDonalds produced documents demonstrating more than 700 people who had been burned by their coffee, but their experts testified that the number was trivial.
• McDonalds quality assurance manager acknowledged that the temperature at which McDonalds maintained its coffee (180° F) would cause severe burns, but that McDonalds had absolutely no intention of reducing the temperature because they sold over $1.3 million PER DAY in coffee.
• McDonalds claimed that customers were generally buying coffee to drink after they reached their place of work or other destination and this required the coffee be delivered at temperatures of 180°. McDonalds research documented by their production was that the largest number of customers were buying coffee to drink immediately, while they were driving to work.

The tort reformers are fond of claiming that the civil justice system was designed to deter “wrongdoing” and not to compensate for injuries. The civil justice system was designed for the very goal of trying to compensate injured people or entities for damages caused by the wrongdoing of others. The civil justice system is laid upon the notion that negligence happens and that negligence by its very definition is unintended. It was only when court’s realized that something far beyond negligence could occur; that callous indifference and reckless disregard for safety began being practiced by Corporate America was the system adapted to permit punitive damages designed to deter outrageous conduct. It is the reckless conduct that can be deterred, but seems to continue.

In this case, the judge who presided over the trial reduced the $2.6 million in damages intended to deter McDonalds from their conduct to only $480,000, but in doing so, the judge characterized McDonald’s conduct as “reckless, callous and willful”.

In summary, tort reformers are fond of distorting the facts of the coffee case because, without distorting those facts, they are left with:

A corporation who admits their product is dangerous to consumers.

A corporation who admits their product as served causes severe 3^rd degree burns, but reducing the temperature from 180° to 155° would avoid , the severest of those injuries.

A corporation who made $1.3 million dollars per day selling its product “as is” and boldly refused to change anything about the product to make it safer.

A corporation who was asked and who refused to compensate a victim in a reasonable amount.

A jury who, faced by the corporation’s lack of remorse, awarded amounts intended to punish the corporation, which amounted to only around (2) day’s loss of sales for the corporation.

An ultimate punitive damage verdict (designed to deter corporations’ future reckless conduct) that amounted to little more than 1/3 of one day’s sales

In the “light of day” the tort reformer crowd is simply lying in an effort to move their own corporate agenda forward and to deny individuals the basic rights promised by the constitution. In the light of day, tort reformers would not need to fabricate their agendas by attempting to appear as champions for average citizens. In the light of day, tort reformers would appear to the public as the corporations, lobbyists and political cronies that they actually are.

$4 billion dollars lost (at least temporarily) to fraud.

That is both astounding and just a little scary.

First, how is $4 billion defrauded from the government? Secondly, who is in a position to defraud the government out of that amount of money?

The answer to the second question is both scary and enraging: fully 50% of the fraud is being committed by “some of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the nation”!

Who? According to Forbes they include:

• Allergan paid the government $600 milliion ot settle fraud charges against it. This involved their “forgetting” to obtain FDA approval before selling the Botox product to the public.
• Novartis got hit for $422.5 million for illegally marketing products.
• AstraZeneca was forced to throw $520 million back into the trough because they “forgot” they were not permitted to market an anti-psychotic drug for uses never approved by the FDA.

These violators have nothing on Pfizer, however, who was required to pay $1.2 billion back to the federal government for its improper promotion of drugs it “forgot” to get approved by the Food & Drug Administration.

What should be much more scary to we Americans is that the current legislators have been very vocal about the fact they believe that Corporate America has been unduly regulated and they are on a direct path to trying to remove those pesky regulations from the backs of corporations.

If Corporate America violates existing regulations designed to safeguard consumers, what will they do when there are no regulations?

Can bath salts cause severe brain damage?

Can bath salts cause severe psychotic episodes?

Can bath salts kill you?

Not the type of warnings you will find on “bath salts” or, for that matter, the types of warnings I would have ever imagined appearing on bath salts.

But, these are not the type of bath salts most of us would be thinking about with those terms.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyM_mFSBlC0[/youtube]

Cloud 9, Bliss and Tranquility don’t sound like they would be a substance that might make you want to take a skinning knife and repeatedly slice your face and stomach, causing near mortal wounds. That is what a Mississippi resident did after he got high on these bath salts.

Reportedly, abusers are ingesting, injecting and snorting the powders contained in products which many of us would assume intended to be used while soaking in the tub.

Hundreds of people across the country are becoming sick, being sent to emergency rooms or being found dead after using “bath salts” sold in convenience stores, gas stations and “head shops” under a number of imaginative names, including:

• Ivory White
• Ocean
• Charge+
• White Lightning
• Scarface
• Hurricane Charlie
• Vanilla Sky
• Red Dove
• Cloud 9
• White Dove

Some law enforcement agents say that the ingredients in some bath salts, mephedrone and methylenedioxypyrovalerone, can be as dangerous or more dangerous, when abused, than the methamphetamine. Methamphetamine is the drug abused as crank, crystal meth, speed, poor man’s coke, and ice.

Mephedrone is a synthetic stimulant, which is a psychoactive drug. It is based upon the compounds (such as cathinone) contained in a African plant called the Khat plant. Khat is a slow growing shrub and, until it was synthetically reproduced, its use was confined to places in which it grew. The stimulating effects of the plant are only effective from fresh plants and, so transporting the actual leaves would have been of little value. Unfortunately, synthetic duplication has removed that barrier to its spread.

Methylenedioxypyrovalerone is a psychoactive stimulant with over (4) times the potency of the drug Ritalin. Methylenedioxypyrovalerone is not a scheduled drug in the United States, except in Louisiana, and so is not regulated.

Abusing the bath salts can cause serious consequences, including:

• Hallucinations
• Severe panic attacks
• Psychosis
• Racing heart
• Cardiac arrhythmia
• Suicidal thoughts
• Death

Unfortunately, the ingredients, which seem to be the danger, are not regulated by the Food & Drug Administration. Officials with the FDA have indicated that banning unregulated substances for sale is a process that can sometimes take years.

Louisiana has moved to ban the sale of these compounds under an emergency measure, after over 125 calls were made to the state’s poison control center about the compounds.

The “bath salts” are being marketed under that category as a way to circumvent regulation. Obviously, actual bath salts were intended to be soaked in and not snorted or ingested.

Parents and family members should be vigilante and take note if they see any of the above products in a loved one’s possession.

Yesterday, the administrator of the 20 Billion dollar Gulf Oil Spill Claims Fund, Ken Feinberg, was attending town hall meetings in Fort Walton Beach, Florida and will be addressing certain affected industries in Tampa, Florida.  He noted that over 70,000 people have filed for “quick claims” with the fund, an option that reportedly requires you to waive any future damages claims.  Since the experts appointed to assess the causes and consequences have found that the damages will be epidemic and on-going, one has to wonder at that sort of claim process.

On June 27^th, Co-Chairs of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon oil Spill and Offshore Drilling will be discussing their exclusive findings in Orlando, Florida.  Their comments on the report, which were released on January 11^th, have been made public as recently as yesterday.  In a recent interview, former Florida Governor Bob Graham stated that the oil spill “was not the product of some cosmic force. It was caused by human beings who made a series of bad decisions which were unnecessary.”  He also noted that while the industry has made huge strides in technology focused on getting oil out, they have never been concerned with making advances in dealing with any disasters that might occur.

Interestingly, Feinberg has not appeared to address the Commission’s report entitled “Deep Water, the Gulf Oil Diaster and the Future of Offshore Drilling.”  The report is large (over 350 pages) and has been available for over a week.  It sheds light on many topics of concern including:

a.) the causes of the disaster;

b.) the public consequence of what has largely been determined post-incident false reporting, and

c.) the need for greater regulatory oversight and scientific understanding of the potential impacts of the event.

A significant part of the report deals with the extent of the damage—a topic that many might assume is the fund’s domain.    Yet, as is implied by the commission’s report, the situation is far too complex for such a solution and far too vast for a fund to handle.  Unlike disasters of the past, the damage here was not actually caused by a single event; instead, it is as President Obama termed it, an “epidemic.”

If you are one of the many whose livelihood and/or life has been directly injured by the events, the jostling contradictions do nothing but add to your nauseating reality:  things are going to be worse before they are better.  In such situations, people have traditionally sought the advice of counsel.  Sadly, in this instance, many are being told that this dauntingly murky situation can be handled without expert guidance.  The report of the President’s own advisers implies otherwise.

President Obama created the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon oil Spill and Offshore Drilling on May 22, 2010.   As stated by the Commission itself, its task was to be an independent undertaking:

“The President charged the Commission to determine the causes of the disaster, and to improve the country’s ability to respond to spills, and the recommend reforms to make energy production safer.  And the President said we were to follow the facts wherever they led.”

Appropriately, the President appointed co-chairs for the commission:  Democrat Bob Graham, Florida’s former Governor and former Senator and Republican William K. Reilly, former EPA administrator under George H.W. Bush, and former president of the World Wildlife Fund.

On June 15^th, as cited in the Report, President Obama squarely addressed the reality of the situation facing the Commission and the nation entirely:

“Already, this oil spill is the worst environmental diaster America has ever faced.  And unlike an earthquake or a hurricane it’s not a single event that does it’s damage in a matter of minutes or days.  The millions of gallons of oil that have spilled into the Gulf of Mexico are more like an epidemic, one that we will be fighting for months, even years.”

After an “intense six-month effort to fulfill the President’s charge,” the facts led to many startlingly sad conclusions.   The news that such an atrocity could have been avoided and that a repeat of such an occurrence is still so likely is not at all surprising, but the sadness of that reality remains a shock to the system. Amidst its conclusions, the Commission offers snapshots of individuals whose lives have been turned upside down.  From the most obvious, such as fishermen and oyster farmers, to the more remote, like wedding coordinators, the commission seems to understand that amidst these large, sweepingly affective conclusions, individual victims will bear the cost.

The commission is also willing to confront the unknowns and the decisions that were made even more agonizing in light of our lack of knowledge.  For instance, the report discusses the angst in the decision to use dispersing chemicals when the effects of the chemicals were unknown; it acknowledges how that angst grows when the companies who make them have been unwilling to share what little information they have about them.

Of the many conclusions it draws, a few are of significance to the Gulf community and its advocates:

• The explosive loss of the Macondo could have been prevented.
• The immediate causes of the Macondo well blowout can be traced to a series of identifiable mistakes made by BP, Halliburton, and Transocean that reveal such systematic failures in risk management that they place in doubt the safety culture of the entire industry.
• Because regulatory oversight alone will not be sufficient to ensure adequate safety, the oil and gas industry will need to take its own unilateral steps to increase dramatically safety through the industry, including self-policing mechanisms that supplement government enforcement.
• Scientific understanding of environmental conditions in sensitive environments in deep Gulf waters, along the region’s coastal habitats, and in areas proposed for more drilling, such as the Arctic,  is inadequate.  The same is true of the human and natural impacts of oil spills.

So while the accident was foreseeable and could (and should) have been prevented, there is no way of knowing how big the impacts and injuries will be and there is little reassurance that it won’t happen again.  Usually when a corporation disregards safety, those who are wronged seek remedy in Court.  A jury of their peers determines the extent of the damage and, if relevant, the gravity of the wrong.  A judgement is then rendered that will not only remedy the injured, but will deter future calamities by bringing the corporate wrong-doer a fiscal awareness of the risks that they had previously put upon the public to suffer.  The hoped for and usually achieved reaction is that the relevant industry creates internal guidelines, procedures and policies that keep the risk from happening.  As the commission understands, and as their report states, regulations on their own just don’t do it.  If they had, we would not be in the mess we find ourselves in today.

In the face of a report stating that the injuries will be in the hundreds of billions of dollars; that we are still not certain even of the causative effects of the oil, the gas, the dispsersants and other pollutants; that the industry needs to find motivation to self-govern; and  that the industry let this happen through preventable mistakes, what’s the plan of action for remedying the whole thing?  What has happened?

Our politicians are considering opening more off-shore territory to oil drilling.  The fund would like you to think that the wrongdoers have fairly determined the limits of their liability to the public.  Administrator Feinberg has stated that the damages are not as far-reaching or great as we originally feared and that the fund will be able to fully compensate the injuries.    The Claims fund has created a “quick Pay” option which offers reasonably desperate claimants the right to a quick lump sum payment in exchange for a waiver.  BP’s link offers directions “For Info On How To Make A Claim w/out A Lawyer.”

The reaction is unequivocally contradictory:  The Commission and the President himself have stated that this is a long-term problem; meanwhile,  the fund and the industry act as though there is a “quick fix” option.  And although there are three claims options to choose from, each of which require documented causation, the wrongdoers are actually advising that you go through the process without an attorney, as though they have the injured community’s  interest at heart and individual counsel is superfluous.

Apparently, they have NEVER had the community’s interest at heart.  One has to wonder, in a situation where such learned politicians can recommend diametrically opposing view points, how can the average person find justice  without an attorney?

When my 47-year old friend from my college days had to have her hip replaced last year, because of wear and tear on the joint, I doubt very much that anyone said to her, “I’ve got some good news and some bad news.  The good news is the state-of-the-art in hip replacement has come a long way since the days of your mom or your grandmother and, once we have replaced your hip, your pain should diminish.  The bad news is we’re using a DePuy ASR Hip System and they are not quite present day state-of-the-art, so you’ve got a pretty good chance of needing a new one five years from now.”

Last summer, a recall of two DePuy Orthopaedics hip replacement systems was announced after testing data showed the two systems have a 1 in 8 chance of requiring replacement within five years.  The two systems, developed by DePuy, a division of Johnson & Johnson, are the ASR (which stands for Articular Surface Replacement) Hip Resurfacing System and ASR XL Acetabular System total hip replacement.   Both of these systems became available in July of 2003, so only those manufactured after that date are the subject of the recall.

Replacement of any joint is quite obviously a surgery not to be undertaken lightly.  While the surgical techniques have developed and improved over the years, the rehabilitation following the surgery is still difficult, involving weeks and sometimes months of physical therapy.  For most joint replacement systems, the life expectancy of the artificial joint is between fifteen and twenty years – certainly not the five years projected for a significant percentage of these DePuy joint systems. In fact it is estimated that a staggering 1 out of every 8 patients will require a second surgery.

The approximately 30,000 recipients who received either one of the DePuy systems recalled last summer need to be evaluated and monitored by their implanting surgeon to evaluate failure of the joint system.  Because of this unusually high failure rate, DePuy has offered to pay for the “reasonable and customary” (their words not mine) costs associated with the “revision” (again, their word) surgery.

After years of pain, which affects every aspect of one’s life prior to the first surgery, then the surgery and finally the weeks (and sometimes months) of rehabilitation following the surgery, I am not sure “reasonable and customary” compensates someone who has to be told that they, once again, must go through weeks of pain and physical therapy because a manufacturer did not properly evaluate a medical device placed in you. These patients not only face repeated physical pain, but also will be denied, again, the experiences of working to earn a living; chasing their kids or grandkids around the yard; the enjoyment of travel; and will be restricted in many aspects of their life.

How can this happen? It is about a corporate citizen, like Johnson & Johnson, choosing profits over the safety of patients. It is about minimizing development costs and rushing a product to market, for use inside human bodies, before appropriate testing and evaluation is done by the manufacturer.

The good news is….well, there is no good news.

A new study released by The Cornucopia Institute, an advocate for family farming, found that most of the common organic and cage-free eggs we purchase at our grocery stores are from chickens that are produced in an industrial-scale setting where no outdoor access is granted for the chickens and most birds are packed into sheds by the thousands. That isn’t the image we had about organic now is it?

The news was stunning because as an animal advocate and organic consumer, I thought I was making a good choice by selecting brands with organic or cage-free on the label.  I assumed, as I am sure many consumers do that “organic” meant the birds were humanely treated, not caged, and allowed to roam free as happy chickens.

It was worth it to me to be paying the extra money for that piece of mind that the animals were receiving humane treatment. However, the report by The Cornucopia Institute showed that organic and cage-free does not mean that the chickens who lay the eggs are roaming free.

“Organic eggs” means that the chickens just eat organic feed, and “cage-free eggs “means the chickens are not kept in cages, however, they are still packed together in dirty, airless, close quarters. Even outdoors doesn’t mean they are allowed to roam in the open air. It just means that the egg producer provides a small opening to access an outdoor area, usually a concrete patio.

The Cornucopia Institute released an egg scorecard giving egg producers five eggs for the best conditions and “exemplary-beyond organic,” and one egg for producers with the worst conditions or “ethically deficient-industrial organics, no meaningful outdoor access.”

Some “five egg” earners are (the best rated):

• Coon Creek Farms
• Kingbird Farms
• Krause Farms
• Neversink Farms
• Organic Pastures
• Cleary Family Farm
• Common Good Farm
• Highfields Farm
• Misty Meadow Farm
• Old Friends Farm
• One Drop Farm
• River Berry Farm
• Trout Lake  Abbey

These producers are “found locally or regionally under their farm’s brand name, and mostly through food co-ops, farmer markets and independently owned grocery stores and sometimes larger chains like Whole Foods,” reports The Cornucopia Institute.

Among the worst were:

• 4-Grain
• Born Free
• Chino Valley Ranchers
• Egg Innovations
• Eggland’s Best
• Garden Valley
• Horizon Organic
• Land O’Lakes
• Nest Fresh Eggs
• Oakdell

Well-known private brands with one egg rating were Whole Foods, Wal-Mart, Costco, Safeway and Trader Joe’s.

The complete scorecard can be found at Cornucopia Institute website.

“Organic should mean that it contains 95 percent organic ingredients and a government-approved expert has inspected the farm where it was produced to make sure the farmer follows the USDA requirement for organic,” according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. However, these standards don’t account for how the animals are treated so it is best to support farmers who treat their animals humanely. Organic production should mean production that is kinder to animals and to the environment.

The “BP Fund Czar”, Kenneth Feinberg, says his staff has been interviewing officials at “government regulatory agencies” to determine how severe the impact of the largest oil spill in the history of the United States will actually be from a long term perspective.

There are at least a couple of noteworthy issues.

First, the largest oil spill in the history of the US has no historical comparisons from which we can make predictions; no models we can use to look into the future and predict what the damage to the environment will be. In large measure, the injury to the environment in the future drives the damages suffered by residents and business owners in the Gulf States, including Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. If we lack any reliable models, then how can any accurate comparisons or analogies be drawn to allow reliable predictions to be made.

Second, Mr. Feinberg is speaking to people in “government regulatory agencies”? These would presumably be the same agencies that allowed this disaster to happen? Why would the “BP Fund Czar” draw on information and opinions from bureaucrats when he has some of the most brilliant minds in the world available to him? Why would he not organize leading environmental, geologic and business experts to aid him in his conclusions?

Mr. Feinberg says that “he is finding mostly an optimistic view of the Gulf’s future”. Based on…?

The bureaucrats in the “government regulatory agencies” have a need to paint an optimistic future for damages flowing from the oil spill. From a “human nature” perspective they would want their actions and inactions to have the most minimal negative results possible. In addition, the administration would understandably like to solve everyone’s problems and the financial losses as quickly as they can.

Is it wise, a mere 9 months after an oil spill that saw over 205 million gallons of crude oil to free flow into a basin we call the Gulf of Mexico, to declare blue skies and calm seas?

As late as December, BP claimed that:

“They (the government agencies) rely on incomplete or inaccurate information, rest in large part on assumptions that have not been validated, and are subject to far greater uncertainties than have been acknowledged. BP fully intends to present its own estimate as soon as the information is available to get the science right.”

I am not suggesting that BP is a source of unadulterated or reliable information, but so far, reports are that the “government regulatory agencies” have offered as many as 10 different estimates of the extent of the oil spill.

So what can victims do who have suffered as a result of this oil spill? As difficult as it is: exercise caution in transacting claims with the BP Oil Spill Czar. I am not suggesting that everyone who has suffered damages needs to have a lawyer; for many that may be completely unnecessary.

Be aware, though, of what both the “Czar” and, in some respects the government, is trying to achieve:

They want victims to execute full, final and all encompassing releases of their claims. It may be that those who do execute such releases will be forever prevented from pursuing claims against ANY entity for future losses they did not or could not anticipate.

The oil spill happened on the watch of these “government regulatory agencies” and the worse the oil spill damage to environment and economy, the worse their performance as regulators appears.

It is in the best interest of BP and the government that this disaster be put behind everyone as expediently as possible. No one looks good and as time goes by it is reasonable to anticipate that more and more will be learned about why and how this happened.

In order to provide immediate response to victims’ claims and yet balance that against fairness to BP and the other companies who contributed to the oil spill, the government is understandably trying to perform a precarious balancing act over the interests to be protected.

If you intend to process your claims through the BP Oil Spill fund:

• Carefully compile all your losses.
• Carefully document your past losses.
• Look into the future and try to anticipate the losses you may suffer in the future.
• Consult experts (accountants, appraisers, people in your industry) to try and get a reasonable grasp on just what you, more likely than not, can expect into the future.
• Submit your claim.
• If you receive a response to your claim from the BP oil Fund, carefully evaluate what they are offering you.
• Seek the advice and consultation of anyone you feel you need and trust.

If you do not feel the Fund personnel are treating your claim fairly, consult an attorney. Find a good attorney who will give you good advice about what losses you can legally collect; the costs involved in litigating your claims; and the best judgment for the likelihood of success with your claim.

Good attorneys will not try and convince you to litigate claims that do not make sense to litigate, given your financial position or the ability to prove your damages. Good attorneys will not try and convince you to hire them and to file a lawsuit if that is really not in your best interests.

Again, simply exercise caution and understand that the BP Oil Fund employees are not working for you.

Twelve years ago, the medical and scientific community was rocked when Lancet, the leading medical journal in the United Kingdom, published the results of a study led by Andrew Wakefield which had concluded that there was a direct link between autism and the childhood vaccine for mumps, measles and rubella (MMR).  The conclusions of the study were later renounced by ten of the 13 authors of the paper and retracted by Lancet, but the suggestion that there was a link between autism and a routinely-given childhood vaccine caused uproar throughout the world.

Worldwide, many parents were convinced that the MMR vaccine, given to almost every child in every civilized nation of the world for decades, was directly responsible for the rise in autism diagnoses and many parents refused to allow their children to be vaccinated.  Those parents whose child had already been diagnosed with autism were faced with evaluating whether they had “given” autism to their children by agreeing to have their child vaccinated.   Not only did the study wreak havoc in the scientific and medical communities, the refusal by many parents to allow their children to receive the MMR vaccination led to measles outbreaks in the United States and Europe and the number of children with measles in England was deemed to be at epidemic levels in 2008.

Despite the retraction of the article by Lancet; despite the multiple studies which have been done in an attempt to duplicate Dr. Wakefield’s findings (none of which did); despite Dr. Wakefield being stripped of his right to practice medicine in the England; and despite the general consensus in the medical and scientific communities that the conclusions of the Wakefield study were erroneous, there are still many individuals who continue to believe his findings and Dr. Wakefield remains resolute that his findings were significant and accurately concluded that the link exists.

Brian Deer, a British journalist, published an article in the British Medical Journal detailing the misrepresentation by Dr. Wakefield in his study.  The Deer article concluded that not only was there no causal connection between the MMR vaccine and autism, the claims made by Dr. Wakefield were completely unfounded. Deer also claimed that Dr. Wakefield falsified medical documentation regarding all of the children in the study in one way or another. In fact, the BMJ article maintained that none of the children had underlying medical issues and   the editors of the BMJ deemed the results claimed by Dr. Wakefield “an elaborate fraud.”

This article is related closely to a case in which the United States Supreme Court heard argument last fall.   In the case of Bruesewitz v. Wyeth, the parents of a young girl brought a lawsuit claiming that their daughter suffered significant neurological damage as a result of receiving a vaccine, which was defectively designed.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5mHU56ySQA[/youtube]

The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, passed in 1986, was enacted to shield vaccine manufacturers from being sued (repeatedly) by recipients of vaccines for damages they allege.  The Act established a “no-fault” system and a separate court to hear cases involving damages which are alleged to have been caused by vaccines.  The rationale behind passage of the Act was the fear that pharmaceutical companies would stop manufacturing vaccines if they were exposed to litigation for defective vaccines. This would leave children worldwide vulnerable to a myriad of diseases which could otherwise be easily prevented.  The unfortunate and practical result of the Act is a situation in which there is little protection for the defective manufacture of the vaccines and a reduced motivation to conduct expensive research into the continued efficacy of them. If a child has been severely injured by a vaccine, under the Act, the manufacturers of that vaccine are essentially immune from being legal recourse.

The Bruesewitz family claimed that it was not the intent of Congress to create this immunity and that Wyeth should have used an alternative design for the vaccine their daughter received. Beyond this, though, the lot from which Hannah Bruesewitz received her vaccine was the subject of over 65 complaints of adverse reactions in patients to whom it was administered.

This is the situation in which the Act creates a problem. If a manufacturer produces a bad batch of vaccine and ignores complaints, should they be immune from suit? If a manufacturer could redesign a vaccine in keeping with developments in science, but they do not and injury is caused by the failure to maintain the best efficacy of the vaccine, should the manufacturer be able to avoid liability simply because of the Act?

Those sneaky cancer cells lurking in blood work, which for years have gone undetected, are now directly in the cross-hairs of a new blood test invented by Boston-based scientists. The test is said to be able to detect one cancer cell in billions of cells from a typical blood test.  Stray cancer cells in the blood usually mean that a tumor has spread or is likely to do so. A test that can capture such cells has the potential to transform care for many types of cancer, especially breast, prostate, colon and lung.  Detection of these stray cells would allow physicians to know, in patients in whom cancer has been diagnosed, which treatments are working, which cancer drug is most effective and whether cancer has spread beyond its known location(s).  In the future, it may allow for more accurate screening for cancer in its initial stages.

Four major U.S. hospitals, Massachusetts General, M.D. Anderson, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Sloan-Kettering will utilize a $15 million grant from the Stand Up to Cancer telethon to fund the use of this new blood test – which may be the breakthrough in cancer treatment that we’ve all been waiting for in the fight against cancer.  These four major cancer treatment hospitals will utilize the now experimental test for 2011.  If the test proves to be effective, it is anticipated that it will be marketed nationwide – perhaps as early as 2012.

“This is like a liquid biopsy” that avoids painful tissue sampling and may give a better way to monitor patients than periodic imaging scans, said Dr. Daniel Haber, chief of Massachusetts General Hospital’s cancer center and one of the test’s inventors.  “If you could find out quickly, ‘this drug is working, stay on it,’ or ‘this drug is not working, try something else,’ that would be huge,” Haber said.

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Johnson & Johnson announced earlier this week that it would be joining the effort and will be instrumental in the effort to mass produce of the test for use in physician’s offices, clinics and hospitals.  The agreement announced Monday calls for the company to improve the microchip, utilize less expensive components and to come up with alternative designs for use in clinical settings and physicians’ offices.

While this test will not be available in the immediate future for most cancer patients, it does offer a much less invasive test which can be done on a very frequent basis to more closely track cancer cells and to assist physicians in evaluating the effectiveness of a patient’s cancer treatment plan.  “This new technology has the potential to facilitate an easy-to-administer, non-invasive blood test that would allow us to count tumor cells, and to characterize the biology of the cells,” said Robert McCormack, Head of Technology Innovation and Strategy, Veridex.  “Harnessing the information contained in these cells in an in vitro clinical setting could enable tools to help select treatment and monitor how patients are responding.”

With seemingly almost every family directly affected by cancer in the United States, let’s all hope this is the cancer breakthrough we’ve been waiting for, or, in the very least, a big step in that direction.