Monday, November 3, 2008

If an arm is worth $10 million, what's a leg go for?

A young woman suffered a horrible medical condition. Injection of a drug caused a dreadful infection of her arm, so severe the arm had to be amputated. She sued. She sued everybody in sight, including the maker of the drug. She won in Vermont state courts. The drug maker appealed to the US Supreme Court, claiming that they had complied with all the FDA's rigorous requirements for drug approval, testing, labeling, and good manufacturing practice.
The drug maker has a point. They manufactured a product in accordance with all the rules, and there are plenty of rules. Should they, their employees, and their stockholders be penalized for doing the right thing? Only the Supreme Court can know.
It's terrible for a young woman to loose her arm, but does this justify taking money from a company that did everything the rules demanded?

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