New York Times, "Cooking up a [medical malpractice] crisis"

If you hear something enough times from people in authority, you tend to believe it. The tort reform zealots -- including doctors, insurance company executives and legions of politicians across the country -- have been hammering away at the idea that crackpot jury awards and lawsuits from undeserving patients are driving up the costs of health care and driving good doctors out of their profession.

"Junk and frivolous lawsuits" is the term of choice for President Bush, who told an audience in Youngstown, Ohio, last month that "junk and frivolous lasuits discourage good docs from even practicing medicine in the first place." However, the U.S. General Accounting Office "investigated situations in five states with reported physician access problems and found mixed evidence. On the one hand, GAO confirmed instances of reduced access to emergency surgery and newborn delivery, albeit in 'scattered, often rural, areas where providers identified other long-standing factors that affect the availability of services.' On the other hand, it found that many reported reductions in supply by health care providers could not be substantiated or 'did not widely affect access to health care.'"

That hardly sounds like a crisis. Moreover, in several states specifically characterized by the AMA as in "crisis," the evidence is rolling in that malpractice claims and awards are not appreciably increasing, and in some instances are declining. The disinformation campaign of the tort reform zealots, and their sustained attacks on the rights of patients who have been harmed by doctors, have been disgraceful. The proper prescription for this apparently chronic disorder is a strong dose of the truth.

Omaha World-Herald, "Workers' lawsuits say health is damaged by flavoring for popcorn"

          At least 66 workers at the Gilster-Mary Lee Corp. and ConAgra plants in Missouri, Ohio, Illinois and Iowa have sued the companies that make artificial butter flavoring, claiming it damaged their lungs.
            Of the six cases that have gone to trial so far, one worker has received a $ 20 million verdict and four others have received undisclosed, out-of-court settlements, said Ken McClain, the lawyer handling the suits. One suit is ongoing.
          International Flavors and Fragrances, the company that lost the one verdict, denies that its product is unsafe and said it would appeal.