Friday, October 22, 2004

Flu Shots

This morning I posted an article from Front Page Magazine on Flu vaccines. The premise of the article was that litigation was a contributing factor in why US pharmaceutical companies were no longer manufacturing Flu vaccine. In the article, it was alleged that John Edwards successfully represented a North Carolina man in the 1980’s who had suffered serious side effects from a flu shot and was awarded a $5 Million settlement.

I did add a caveat to the original posting that I could not find any other source for this story other than Front Page Magazine which I have found to be generally reliable. A comment left by Chris Taylor of Taylor & Company caused me to revisit the issue a little more thoroughly. I followed up with his suggest at Snopes and also at Findlaw which has a listing of John Edward’s litigation cases. I could find no evidence that he actually represented any flu vaccine plaintiff at any time.

Regardless, my opinion of John Edward's as a snakeoil salesman remains unchanged.






2 comments:

james said...

Even without the Edwards connection, this is hilarious! Goes to show where a lawsuit crazy culture can lead.

Chris Taylor said...

Hey Kate,

This article is false. Although I agree one hundred percent with the assessment of John Edwards as an ambulance chaser extraordinaire, Snopes has the goods on the false flu shot claim.

Unfortunately it looks like Front Page Mag bought it, too.