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Biotech / Medical : PFE (Pfizer) How high will it go? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Robohogs who wrote (8631)	11/18/2004 5:16:56 PM
From: IRWIN JAMES FRANKEL	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9523

>> We do need tort reform though. I* agree. I do not think that courts or juries have the skills necessary to understand the balancing act that is necessary and inherent in the drug approval process. Were COX2 drugs needed? Well, before them we were seeing 10,000 deaths per year from GI perforations owing to the adverse effects of aspirin and NSAID's. A jury can award damages to the person who took VIOXX and was injured or to his family if he died. But just looking at the person injured by the drug fails to give any credit for the lives saved by using COX2's. A jury can never solve that problem. It must be solved by society delegating the "weighing" process to someone who can take both the costs and benefits of a drug into account. In the US that is the FDA. Establishing a defense for the drug being FDA approved may need some legislative "tweaking" after careful consideration but it seems preferable to the litigation process. (The exception to that statement is that many attorneys who are employed to bring or defend the suits might not benefit.) ij * I am an attorney.