The Brockovich Report

A lawfirm advertises a medical brochure about Mesothelioma. On Television.

A news broadcast announces that many Lipitor patients experience memory loss. (Why would this be surprising? Statins reduce cholesterol and the brain relies on cholesterol to function. )

Some Avandia patients won't take their medication. Some Avandia patients have an increased risk of heart attack. Some people take Avandia and have heart attacks. Some of them die. Some of them didn't have to.

Every day for us, it's an information war out there. A war between information and disinformation; between fact and fear; between supposition and position; it's a war of possibilities.

I think sometimes it is important to remember that opinions and belief can be irrelevant. Think of it for a moment. If you believe the world is square, does it matter? The world is round (technically an oblate spheroid—a rounded shape with a bulge around the equator) no matter what you believe. And round or square or cubic zirconium, we're not going to fall off of it. The truth--or the untruth--of a claim does not rest in belief. It rests in fact. Hopefully we may discover the truth if we investigate it; but we above all should maintain the right to our own voices. In spite of what we believe, there is a tangible truth out there. Just...it may not be a universal truth and sometimes--like those folks on the other side of the earth who do not fall off--the consequences of the truth and all its facets are counterintuitive.

What is the point to all of this philosophizing?

There is more than one perspective out there. There are as many perspectives as there are people--maybe even more, since some people are open-minded enough to see more than one point of view. And that is all right, because we have freedom of speech, and we have first amendment rights.

And because we have freedom of speech and first amendment rights, internet advertising should reflect that. Curtailing attorneys from internet advertising is a violation of freedom of speech and first amendment rights.

Business would have us all be a world of robots, taking their commands, buying their products, buying their bull.

In particular, I'm responding to articles like this one One problem in this article is that a single spurious assumption can ruin a study; and studies can be slanted to seem to say nearly anything. And there's a straw dog in that article, a false premise. They claim drug litigation is about trial lawyer profits. When it comes down to it, drug litigation is not about trial lawyer profits. Drug litigation is about empowering the tiny voice of the consumer against the fat cats of industry. Victims have a right to be heard. Victims have a right to have "megaphones" so their voice can be heard; and trial lawyers are the personification of megaphones. Articles like the link I just posted seem to be holding up the voice of reason, but they are not. They are trying to quell rights, and what is more shameful than that, especially in a free and ethical society?

Remember in the Wizard of Oz, how Dorothy announced herself? "I am Dorothy, the small and meek."

Come on people and take off the blinders! It is no coincidence that thousands on Avandia now have heart attacks. Don't they have a right to be more than a petulant Dorothy trembling--and dying--at the feet of the Great and Powerful pharmaceutical companies?