Facts v. Fiction

FICTION: If we repeal this law, no matter how bad it is, it will cost the state money and hurt our economy.

FACT: A repeal will save taxpayers millions of dollars. The thousands of people injured, disabled and killed by dangerous drugs in Michigan didn’t just disappear when this law was passed. The huge costs of medical expenses, surgeries, transplants, lost wages, bankrupt businesses, rehabilitation, bad debt, ruined credit, destroyed families and human suffering did not disappear when the wrongdoers were given immunity. Instead, all of these costs were transferred from the drug makers who profited from the dangerous drugs, to the taxpayers, who now carry this burden. Texas and New York were able to pursue drug makers to reimburse taxpayers for Medicaid costs due to fraud and overpricing. Michigan’s drug industry immunity law stops us from seeking reimbursement for taxpayers Why should the people of Michigan pay the bill for drug makers who kill with dangerous products?

FICTION: Drug industry immunity is needed to protect drug makers so they can make more drugs. The drug industry says that there is a “balance” between allowing a few dangerous drugs that might kill us, and saving the industry money so they can make new drugs.

FACT: Drug industry immunity is about huge drug industry profits, pure and simple. Drug making is very, very profitable. Merck –maker of Vioxx—made $2.3 billion off that deadly and recalled drug in just the one year prior to its recall and $11 billion overall. It is not just ridiculous, but a bit scary, to argue that drug makers must be allowed to kill people with deadly drugs so that the industry will be guaranteed enough profit to make more such deadly drugs.

FICTION: Drug industry immunity is already gone. The drug industry says the US Supreme Court solved the problem and people in Michigan can now hold drug makers accountable. So we don’t need to repeal the law.

FACT: Exactly the opposite. The need for repeal is more urgent than ever. The US Supreme Court decided Wyeth v Levine on March 4, 2009. The court rejected the drug industry’s argument, rejected the idea of “drug industry immunity” [the doctrine of “Federal preemption” applied to FDA approved drugs.]. The Supreme court also instructed states like Michigan that they were responsible for letting their own citizens hold the drug industry accountable if they could prove a dangerous drug harmed them or their family.

FICTION: People support the drug industry immunity law. The drug lobby and some in the Senate have said it is a good law and lots of experts support it.

FACT: A bi-partisan majority of lawmakers, experts from related fields, and between 72% and 85% of Michigan voters oppose drug industry immunity and support its repeal. There is a reason Michigan is the only state with such a bad law on the books.

FICTION: Lots of states give the drug industry absolute immunity. Big business and some lawmakers have said it is pretty normal.

FACT: Michigan is the only state to grant the drug industry absolute immunity. The only one. The industry refers to this as “Michigan’s absolute FDA compliance defense,” and in the Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Law Bulletin, for example, the industry lawyers note that “Michigan is the only state” to have such a law, and that “with the exception of Michigan, no other state” has created such an immunity. [see “A Call for Continued State Law Tort Reform Compliance with FDA Regulations As a Bar to Pharmaceutical Product Liability Litigation” Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Law Bulletin, Volume 4, Number 3, March 2004] Michigan’s “absolute” drug industry immunity is unique.

FICTION: The drug industry says this is just about the victims’ lawyers.

FACT: Lawyers don’t kill and injure people with dangerous drugs. Lawyers didn’t kill 55,000 Vioxx victims, but the FDA says a drug maker did. Blaming lawyers for dead and injured drug victims is like blaming the police for crime victims. If drug companies were not selling deadly drugs the injured and killed people then there would be no need for those who have lost loved ones or experienced harm to seek accountability in court. Big business loves to try to blame their wrongdoing on the people’s lawyers who hold them accountable. Notice they don’t criticize the teams of lawyers they hire to protect themselves.

It’s time…

to repeal Michigan’s Drug Industry Immunity Law.