When one sees the size of the settlements in the civil suits against the pharmaceutical industry, the numbers [in the millions] seem impressive. Then if you look at the corporate profits [in billions], those settlements don’t look quite so large anymore. So we make the same old "cost of doing business" comment and wish for bigger settlements. Now there’s a blog I hadn’t seen before, the Seroquel Lawsuit Blog, that is looking at things from another perspective – the patient’s perspective, one case at a time – posting the letters from the law firms to the plaintiffs adding another level of complexity as the firms negotiate the settements and extract their legal fees. Stephany of the Soulful Sepulcher blog has posted a number of the documents from the site. That’s where I ran across it. It’s getting pretty complicated, as the Law firms are now going after the Seroquel Lawsuit Blog‘s anonymous blogger for posting their letters to their clients.
It’s really a discouraging story, the kind that takes its toll on your world view. The pharmaceutical company keeps the downsides of their product secret. If the injured parties succeed in a suit against them for the resulting damages, their lawyers keep their negotiations of a settlement with their clients secret. The pharmaceutical company’s lawyers and the plaintiff’s lawyers end up making a killing. The payoffs to the injured patients are fairly paltry. Then the pharmaceutical companies factor their settlements and legal fees back into their subsequent drug pricing. It’s not slightly pretty. So take a look at the Seroquel Lawsuit Blog, looking back through the older entries for an inside peek at yet another dark side to this already dark enough story…
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