Great Implant Ripoff

12--25--1999

The Associated Press reported today that bankruptcy judge Arthur Spector once again ruled in favor of lawyers instead of justice and the citizens of America. He declared that women who failed to sign on to the outrageous settlement already negotiated could sue Dow Corning's parent companies. In doing so he submarined the whole settlement process and effectively tossed Dow Corning's bankruptcy reorganization plan as well.

In probably the greatest injustice of the screwy world of product liability, plaintiffs' attorneys and misled women sued Dow Corning over silicone breast implants. There has never been a single shred of scientific evidence that the implants caused any illnesses, physical "syndromes," or anything else in terms of real harm to a single woman. In fact, thorough and valid research has shown just the opposite. Yet the lawyers, smelling blood and going for the throat of a monstrous corporation, have managed to kill Dow Corning over the totally false allegations. This phenomenon is known as "mass torts," or the flooding of courts with massive numbers of lawsuits until the poor target of the suits is simply overwhelmed and forced to settle - facts or truth be damned.

In most human pursuits, such behavior would simply be labeled for what it really is: evil and corrupt thievery by criminals (i.e., the lawyers and not necessarily their misled clients). In our insane litigious society, set up, engineered, and deliberately corrupted by lawyers and judges for their own benefit, this insanity continues to work against all of us, to harm us monetarily and morally. What will it take to rouse the populace into correcting and overturning the sickened system of lawyer greed that our liability climate fosters?

The plaintiffs' bar appear to have the arms manufacturing industry in their sights next. The usual tactics will apply: rumor, falsehood, hysteria, mass torts, class actions, after-the-fact legislative changes engineered by their powerful lobby, venue shopping, judge shopping, jury shopping, and so on. The sharks know all the slimy tricks.

When will the public wake up and realize that it is US, - all of us - who are most harmed and that WE pay for this foul and malignant behavior every time we purchase anything and in every insurance premium we pay, in every lost opportunity and disappearing research for new goods and services. WE are suffering, not the insurance industry, not the corporations, but ALL OF US. When will the American public stop shooting itself in the foot?