Drug Company Support of Continuing Medical Education II

Officious, left wing ideologue hypocrite Robert Steinbrook, MD of left wing, Hate America, Dartmouth University, goes apoplectic over sponsored continuing medical education. Meanwhile, he has no trouble taking money from the left wing Macy Foundation to further their left wing agenda. They fund only politically correct grants, under their Harvard indoctrinated graduate infiltrated administration. So Steinbrook' s credibility is nil by his bias. This article has the credibility of a Ford salesman criticizing Toyota cars. The criticism is pretextual and self-interested.

He shows no harm to patients nor to doctors. Yet, the remedies gets threatening. Educational grants by drug companies will be violating Federal anti-kickback statutes, and the False Claims Act. They risk fraud and abuse. How can these be avoided? Funnel pooled grants through agencies such as presumably his own, eliminating the competition to medical school CME activities from far more competent commercial providers.

Meanwhile, JAMA, that left wing propaganda organ, is filled with drug company advertising. No mention of that anywhere. JAMA also provides its own CME, and is a competitor to those it attacks.

Here. I am still looking for the disclosure statement of the conflicts of interest of Dr. Steinbrook, the Macy Foundation, and of JAMA.

Court Rules in Favor of the Lethal Injection

This ruling is in accordance with the Rent Seeking Theory of Appellate Decisions. Had the Court ruled otherwise, all executions would have stopped. That would have stopped the huge lawyer business of appealing death penalty convictions. Each murderer is worth a $ million to both sides of the death penalty.

Here is an alternative. Three strikes, and you're dead. One, two, three convictions for a violent crime, Sayonara. The main theory supporting that approach is that the deceased have a low rate of recidivism for violent crime. That approach would also end the dilemna of the high rate of death penalty convictions of innocent people, roughly 20%. Even if the death penalty gets applied to a person innocent of the third crime, he merits the penalty by the other two violent crimes. The count should start at the earliest age tolerable to the public. Fourteen, the demarcation of biological adulthood, carries a lot of logic. This ends the injurious career of vicious people before they have had a chance to commit their hundreds of crimes a year. This is a victim safety approach. Gangs would end by attrition.

The problem is that lawyers would have no customers left. But the current balance of terror maintained by the lawyer, especially oppressive to minorities, would shift from the victim to the violent predator.

Suit Opposes Denial of Off Label Prescribing by Medicare

Here.

The cancellation of a prescription by refusing to pay for it is the practice of medicine.

The Supreme court has held a half dozen times, clinical judgment has presumptive validity and requires deference.

There is interference with the contracts in effect between doctor and patient, CMS. That is an intentional tort. The contractor of Medicare should not have government immunity from such a claim.

Yale Clerks Correlate with Reversal of Judge Decisions on Appeal

Here. Comments by former students confirm the ideological use of the law taught at Yale Law School. It should lose its tax exempt status, and all its government funding should stop.

Review of Malpractice Maldistribution

Here, and here, by Ted Frank.

And by Eugene Volokh, here.

With regard to the lawyer statistics, including Volokh's statistical sophistry.

If 100% of the medmal plaintiff lawyers are responsible for the 75% failure rate of their weak cases, shouldn't they all lose their licenses? I like a three strikes law. Lose three, become a high school history teacher.

This is even better. To deter. Oppose corporatist tort reform, an ineffective lawyer Trojan horse. End all self-dealt lawyer and judge immunities. Then sue them personally into stopping their misconduct. All lawyers and judges carry massive insurance policies to make whole the victims of their lawyer carelessness. This includes the victims of a false verdict, breaching res judicata, as warranted. Classes get covered. So the 1000's of chemical workers losing their jobs after the company bankrupting false breast implant verdict get compensated for lost wages.

These lawyers sure have dozens of duties to the defendant, enumerated in the Rules of Conduct, Evidence, Civil and Criminal Procedure. These are formal statutory duties and settled Supreme Court holdings. Deter the self-dealing tort feasors.

Drug Company Support of Continuing Medical Education

The left has been on a campaign to end such support. The efforts get reviewed, here. These include self-regulation by companies, anti-kickback enforcement by the Justice Department. They further propose ending all commercial support, refusing to accredit any sponsored activity, allowing contributions only to central depositories, to be run by left wing ideologues and to plunder them, increasing disclosure requirements. The JAMA authors find the current situation, "... at best very troubling."

There is only thing missing. The fact of any harm shown either to patients, or to costs.

There are a couple of problems not discussed in the left biased JAMA.

1) These measures interfere with clinical judgment, and violate about 6 Supreme Court decisions holding for a presumption favoring clinical decisions. The most famous is Roe v Wade.

2) There is a racist component. No one cares about the use of brand medications for middle class white people. When it comes to minorities on the public insurance, doctors cannot be trusted to control themselves. They helplessly write for brand names after receiving a pen or a sandwich. This implies that minorities need only generic medications with troubling side effects, that could not get approved by the FDA with today's standards, that pet owners would refuse.

Valid Point: Every Penny of Health Costs Comes from Workers

Here. The employer gets his health insurance funds from the productivity of the workers, as does government. There is no shared responsibility. The rise of health costs faster than wages and productivity increases cannot be sustained.

There is one thing the article does not mention. Allowing workers to control their health expenditures entirely, instead of tyrannical government officials. Workers would then have a vested interest in pushing costs down. The biggest savings in health costs comes from improved health.

The Lawsuit is a Product

The lawsuit complaint is a product, like a toaster. It can thus be “defective.” Several features support this assertion.

1) The complaint is not a written expression protected by the First Amendment. It is a tool to make money. When a writing is a tool and not an expression, it becomes a product subject to standard of care. Aviation maps that were incorrect and resulted in a crash were deemed to be defective products (1).

Mushroom textbooks that caused poisoning resulting from error in the illustration were deemed to be expression and protected by the First Amendment (2). They were said to be like books about aviation maps, not the aviation map product itself. One does not peruse nor read a complaint to learn of the author’s feelings and ideas. The complaint is a tool that is used for an effect, as a map is used to find a landing strip.

2) The dictionary definition supports (3): “a thing produced by labor.”

3) The legal dictionary supports (4): “something that is distributed commercially for use or consumption that is usually 1) tangible personal property 2) the result of fabrication or processing and 3) an item that has passed through a chain of commercial distribution before ultimate use or consumption.”

4) The Supreme Court agrees it is manmade items (5). “... respondent's microorganism is the result of human ingenuity and research.” The lawsuit is similar to a weaponized virus and artificial microbes, originating in human manufacture and having similar effect.

5) Intellectual property law supports (6). One will likely not be able to copyright a lawsuit complaint, as one might a pantomime or a book. Once a lawsuit has been committed to paper or other medium, one may apply for an utility patent a lawsuit if the complaint has originality (7).

6) A patent is a legal filing similar to a lawsuit. A patent holder was sued for product liability for a faulty design. The appellate court threw the case out for policy reason to avoid discouraging the filing of patents. It indicated that a patent was not an expression protected by the First Amendment, as claimed by the defendant (8, 9). On the other hand, the placement of a trademark, without involvement in any aspect of production, led to liability for a defective gift umbrella (10).

7) The lawsuit is heavily advertised and solicited.

8) It is manufactured on a custom but mass basis, using a format similar to the chassis of a car, upon which custom requests of the customer are loaded.

9) It is portable and delivered.

10) It is for the purpose of increasing income of lawyers.

11) It is purchased by the plaintiff, and made the subject of a contract with the lawyer.

12) It is aimed at the defendant like a gun. As does a gun, it requires a license.

References

1. Brocklesby v. United States, 767 F.2d 1288, 1294-95 (9th Cir. 1985), cert. denied 474 U.S. 1101 (1986) (mushroom encyclopedia protected by First Amendment); Saloomey v. Jeppesen & Co., 707 F.2d 671, 676-77 (2d Cir. 1983); Aetna Casualty & Surety Co. v. Jeppesen & Co., 642 F.2d 339, 342-43 (9th Cir. 1981); Fluor Corp. v. Jeppesen & Co., 170 Cal. App. 3d 468, 475, 216 Cal. Rptr. 68, 71 (1985). http://www.hsba.org/HSBA/Legal_Research/Hawaii/sc/15263.cfm (travel guide did not have duty to warn huge Pacific surf of Hawaii could be dangerous)

2. Winter v. G.P. Putnam's Sons, 938 F.2d 1033, 1038 (9th Cir. 1991)

3. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=product

4. Black’s Law Dictionary, 7th Ed., West Group, St. Paul, MN. p. 1225.

5. Diamond v Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. 303, 100 S Ct 2204, 65 L Ed 2nd 144 (1980).
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/printer_friendly.pl?page=us/447/303.html

6. http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#wwp

7. 35 USCA Section (102). http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/35/102.html

8. Principles reviewed in: http://www.autm.net/pubs/journal/92/liability92.html

9. Case decision: [still looking]

10. Kennedy v Guess, Inc., 806 N.E.2d 776 (Ind. 2004)

http://www.state.in.us/judiciary/opinions/archive/04210401.rts.html

Formula to Pass the MPRE

Here. The left side of the equation is always the distractor to snare the simp law student.

Lawyers in Self-Help

Nice. I wonder if any lawsuit will follow.

Indemnity Clause in Internet Terms of Service

This is what I will be watching in this case . Rommates.com may seek costs and consequential damages from its posters, after their signing the Terms of Service.

1) The indemnity clause is condemned by the UCC if between unequal parties.

2) Contracts of adhesion with a disparate parties is unconscionable per se, according to the UCC.

3) The indemnity clause represents free corporate liability insurance provided to the offeror, by the offeree, without disclosure of this effect.

4) Let's say the offeree has $100,000 in assets. Let's say, I could buy such a corporate liability insurance policy covering $100,000 of liability for $1000 a year. Then, the offeror has received a liability insurance equal to the assets of the offeree, and has been unjustly enriched by $1000 a year. That unjust enrichment should be disgorged in a class action lawsuit to retrieve the value of all the corporate liability insurance provided for free. Because this is insurance, it does not require that the offeror tried to collect on the liability coverage.

5) The provision of insurance by an unlicensed, unregulated offeree breaks the insurance laws of the state. The contract indemnity clause promises to perform an illegal act, unregulated, unapproved insurance.