Here comes the peanut butter/salmonella lawsuits

Quick to smell the cash. Medpundit notes that many of the lawsuits will likely be without basis:

Winter is diarrhea season here in the United States, and most of those cases are caused by a virus. Chances are, most of those 3,000 people who called Marler had the routine run-of-the-mill viral gastroenteritis. It’s amazing how many people reached for the phone to call an attorney. They smell money, and it’s tax free.

Comments

Happyman
peanut butter may soon be extinct, along with those evil playground swingsets, which cause so much harm to society.
Anonymous
No, both will be available, but only by prescription.
Anonymous
And how many providers will line up like street walking hookers at Hunter’s Point in order to prostitute themselves with their “expert testimony” for the same attorney pimps that they were crying about when it came to med mal?
Anonymous
“And how many providers will line up like street walking hookers at Hunter’s Point in order to prostitute themselves with their “expert testimony” for the same attorney pimps that they were crying about when it came to med mal?”
Perhaps as many as your carping and repetitive posts about the subject, Mr.(erstwhile) “Criminallopath”.
Anonymous
When the physicians stop whining about the legal system with their double standard hypocrisy and when they stop clogging the courtrooms with their junk science “clinical causation” BS is when I will no longer have to post. Providers have as much of a moral high ground on the issue as Ted Haggard had on homosexuality. None.
Anonymous
Subtherapeutic levels of Prozac as usual, Criminal??
Anonymous
Criminallopath frequently goes off the deep end and sounds crazy. This tends to obscure the fact that his basic premise is absolutely correct. Expert witness testimony is unregulated and unmonitored. Much of what passes as expert testimony is pure BS and is bought by the attorneys. We like to blame the lawyers for the med mal situation, but blaming a lawyer for suing is like blaming a dog for eating his own vomit – that’s just what they do. The best way to correct the crisis in med mal (and all torts) is to hold expert witness testimony to a higher standard. All experts should be required to be registered with the court as such. In order to be considered an expert, one would have to adhere to standards of continuing education, familiarity with subject, and competency. Dishonest testimony would be grounds for dismissal from the panel. Fees would be monitored and regulated.
There also needs to be a blog that assembles and publishes expert witness testimony. Most of the ridiculous stuff that gets said in court and depositions would attract proper condemnation if we could only see it. Experts might think twice before lying if they knew their lies would be exposed before the public and their peers.
Anonymous
“Expert witness testimony is unregulated and unmonitored.”
That’s not even vaguely true. If there was no opposing counsel, no Daubert motions, etc. that might be true. But the other side has a vested interest in eliminating or limiting an expert’s testimony as much as possible.
Now, you may disagree with the judge’s decision to allow someone to testify now and again, but people would probably disagree with your decisions on experts at time.
And even when one does get through, the weaknesses in their testimony, their CV, their experience, are AMPLY explored before the jury.
And providers don’t get to just get up there and say “This is what caused X” unchallenged. Anyone who has witnessed a cross exam knows that this is about how it goes:
Q. Now doctor, there’s no objective way to measure X, is there?
A. No.
Q. And you don’t have the ability to determine what previous injuries she may have had independent of her medical records or her telling you, correct? (Assuming a soft tissue injury)
A. Correct.
Q. So it’s fair to say that the basis for your opinion as to the cause and/or the amount of suffering rests solely on what the plaintiff told you, right.
A. That would be correct.
That’s a short version, but any competent defense counsel makes it very clear what are truly objective findings by the physician and what are subjective complaints of the plaintiff.
Anonymous
“Most of the ridiculous stuff that gets said in court and depositions would attract proper condemnation if we could only see it. Experts might think twice before lying if they knew their lies would be exposed before the public and their peers.”
You can see it, at least with regard to trial testimony. Trials are public record – all you have to do is call the court reporter. Maybe it’s not as prevalent as you’d like to believe since it hasn’t been done to any great degree. There are a few sites, but as a percentage of total cases, they don’t show much.
Anonymous
The Q/A posted above is substantive in regards to what even a bottom of the barrel defense attorney should do. However, this does not mitigate the problem in regards to unequal application of the evidentiary standards governing expert testimony. Putting Kelley-Frye aside for the moment… the application of Daubert and particularly the prong related to error rate of the methodology of relying on an involved litigant to provide an accurate history should preclude clinical causation testimony. No other field of expertise gets the degree of latitude as do clinicians when it comes to the lax application of the FRE 702 or Daubert/Kumho Tire.
Anonymous
Obviously it’s bottom of the barrel, space constraints require it to be.
How would you go about improving it?
NoAcuteDistress
“blaming a lawyer for suing is like blaming a dog for eating his own vomit – that’s just what they do.”
ROFLMAO
You made my day! Do I have your permission to ass that one along?
Anonymous
Improving the system is rather simple. Fist all tort actions must meet the current thresholds for toxic tort cases when it comes to first establishing general causation and then specific causation. Secondly, clinical testimony is limited to the things that a clinician can actually determine from their expertise – the condition that is present, treatment for it and standard of care. What would be gone is parroting of the history of the plaintiff as the cause of the diagnosis. It takes zero background, training and expertise to say – they are telling me X and I choose to believe them (unless they are suing me). Causation testimony would be based upon an actual scientific evaluation of the event in question. For example, for an auto accident, one would actually independently (not as an advocate) analyze the accident to determine if the the appropriate forces and motions required for the causation of the diagnosis were actually present. This would actually return the burden of proof back to the plaintiff instead of the current situation in which the plaintiff need only hire an advocate that will automatically attribute causation to whatever history is provided and have that then serve as some form of legally admissible proof.
Anonymous
We had one of the accused lot numbers. I just opened as went to eating it as usual. What are white cells for if we aren’t going to use them?
illbill
Why don’t you all come to my office and take calls. We are tesing 2,500 jars – those negative do not ahve a case.
Anonymous
yeah, my mom freaked out and threw out all the peanut butter in the house. peanut butter seems to be lucrative this winter. check out the number of people suing conagra:
http://www.mainstreetnews.com/2007/February/B0228C.html
http://www.class-action-finder.com/medical/peter-pangreat-value-peanut-butter/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17361579/
Anonymous
I ate some Kroger peanutbutter, no numbers on and had lots of shit since,,,I am on vacation. nice way to see the john, I am reading lots of stuff..but what do I need to do to get back on the road again?

Here comes the peanut butter/salmonella lawsuits

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