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Outside Outrage

We're not the only ones who are outraged - here are some outside outrages that caught our eye!

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Spitzer Commentary Worse than the Scandal Print E-mail
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Cultural Outrage
Written by Tiffany Sanders   
Tuesday, 25 March 2008 00:21

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer resigned after it came to light that he'd been partaking of some very expensive local prostitutes, but the reaction and the commentary that followed that revelation was at least as disturbing as the incident itself. The prostitute in question became an overnight celebrity with more than five million hits on her web page. Discussion forums across the country buzzed with debate about whether or not Spitzer's wife should be standing by him. And, as if that weren't all enough, "experts" like Dr. Laura Schlessinger and Erica Jong appeared on camera to share their opinions with us.

The content of their statements was bad enough: Dr. Laura told us that men were bound to be susceptible to the charms of other women if their wives didn't attend to their personal and sexual needs and make them feel like men, successes and heroes. And Erica Jong followed that up by diagnosing Spitzer as a sex addict.

Dr. Laura’s statement surprised me a bit, given her reputation for insisting on fidelity and personal responsibility. Turns out those poor men just can't be expected to stay faithful if their women aren't acting right at home. Does that apply to Eliot Spitzer? Did his wife fail to make him feel like a man, leaving him vulnerable to the "charms" of another woman? I don't know. Neither does Dr. Laura, despite the prestige of her doctorate in…um…Physiology. Nor, of course, can Erica Jong possibly know whether Eliot Spitzer is a sex addict based on what's been revealed in news reports.

It would be professionally questionable for a mental health professional to reach such a conclusion (and announce it) without any firsthand knowledge or professional records on which to base her conclusion. Fortunately, Erica Jong is off the hook because she's…well…a novelist. She wrote a famous novel about sex, which apparently qualified her in the minds of a certain television station to speak on the larger meaning of Spitzer's actions.

Unfortunately, Jong's famous novel isn't as famous as it once was. What was controversial and widely reported in the seventies has become fairly standard fare today, and the world is full of people who have never heard of Erica Jong. I happened to watch her pronouncement on an airport television with several of those people, and what I witnessed was troubling: because she announced a diagnosis, they assumed that she was a psychologist or some other kind of mental health professional.

Of course, people are free (within legal bounds) to say any fool thing they want to. But wouldn't it be nice if they just…didn't? Wouldn't it be nice if people didn't make declarative statements about things they didn't really know much about, and if television stations and magazines and other media didn't hold people out as experts who just…weren't?
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Supreme Court Leaves Patients Vulnerable to Medical Device Defects Print E-mail
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Legal Outrage
Written by Tiffany Sanders   
Monday, 24 March 2008 23:26

Earlier this month, the United States Supreme Court ruled that federal law pre-empted state lawsuits based on negligent design or manufacture of medical devices that had received pre-market approval from the Food & Drug Administration (FDA).

In theory, pre-emption makes sense. The Medical Device Amendments specify that states can’t add requirements; it’s easy to see the kind of complications that would ensue if each state had different—and possibly conflict--requirements for medical device approval. But in determining that allowing state courts to apply common-law negligence standards would amount to “additional requirements”, the Supreme Court has effectively declared that a medical device manufacturer that secures pre-market approval is in the clear.

Even that, on the surface, might seem logical. After all, the device has already gone through rigorous screening, right? Can’t we assume that it wasn’t negligently designed if the FDA thoroughly reviewed and approved it?

Perhaps, if the FDA conducted its own tests or used outside experts to approve medical devices, there might be some reason to that perspective. In fact, however, the pre-market approval process is based on data submitted by the manufacturer itself, based on its own testing.

So, in essence, the manufacturer says, “We tested it out and it works great. No problems.” The FDA reviews all of the reports that say “we tested it out and it works great” in more detail, and then grants approval. And then, if it turns out that the device DOESN’T actually work great…that, perhaps, it kills people…those people (and their heirs) are barred from filing lawsuits against the manufacturer because it would be “imposing additional requirements” for the state court to say that medical devices should be manufactured in such a way as to not kill people.

Think the FDA has a handle on that in the pre-market approval process? Here are just a few of the drugs and devices that have received FDA approval in recent years and gone on to be recalled and/or formed the basis for nationwide lawsuits:

Vioxx
Seroquel
Risperdal
Baycol
Ortho-Evra
Viagra
Cialis
Certain Cordis Balloon Catheters
Certain Guidant Defibrillators
Certain Medtronic Implantable Infusion Pumps

Somehow, it doesn’t look like that pre-market approval is a sure thing. Just maybe, some “additional requirements” (try not to kill the patient) would be helpful. As it stands, medical device manufacturers have little at risk if their devices fail.

While it might be nice to believe that these corporations will want to avoid killing their customers out of the goodness of their hearts, or concern for public relations, or just because doctors might stop using their devices if they don’t work out, the recent history of drug litigation tells us that isn’t the case at all. Well-documented information in recent trials has made it clear that major corporations are making conscious decisions to sacrifice certain numbers of consumers in the interest of higher profits—civil litigation that might have cut into those profits might have been the last protection standing for patients reliant on their products.
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Page 11 of 14

One Minute Outrage - Political

Issue: Nations around the world join forces to put an end to the use of cluster bombs because of the high incidence of civilian injury and death--sometimes long after the conflict is over. But the United States, like Russia, China and Israel, refuses to sign the treaty.

Impact: The United States further abdicates the role of world leader, while still clinging stubbornly to the title. The continued use of cluster bombs is bad enough, but far worse is the message to the world that force by any means necessary is the way to go--and the path to be chosen by the largest and most powerful nations on earth.

Read More: US Joins China and Russia in Rejecting Cluster Bomb Ban

One Minute Outrage - Earthly

Issue: A blind couple is prosecuted for employing a commonly accepted method of composting in their own garden.

Impact: Your tax dollars at work making life difficult for people with the audacity to grow vegetables--and an apparent legal preference for chemical fertilizers over organic matter that might actually help the environment.

Read More: Gardener Threatens Public Safety with Compost

One Minute Outrage - Legal

Issue: Police departments in major cities across the country aren't content to arrest self-made criminals, but have decided to hit the streets and see whether they can create some more.

Impact: Time and tax dollars poured into sting operations designed to test ordinary people and create crimes that would never have been; meanwhile, who's minding the store?  Hundreds of thousands of unserved felony warrants lie inactive across the country while police experiment in subways, department stores and on streetcorners.

Read More:  Make Your Own Criminal – It's So Much Easier than Chasing the Real Ones


One Minute Outrage - Cultural

Issue: A disabled child is left to die by a negligent mother, and the people charged with her protection stand by and let it happen; sadly, Danieal Kelly is only one example of the wide-ranging failure of the systems that are supposed to keep our children safe.

Impact: The impact on this particular child was a slow and painful death, and she is not alone. Right now, as you're reading this, other children are living in similar circumstances; other parents and caseworkers are ignoring their needs and waiting for someone else to do something. The most helpless among us will not survive unless we all step up and do our part--and insist that others do theirs.

Read More: Disabled Child Left to Die by Mother, Social Workers


Sex Offender Registration / Residency Restrictions Do More Harm than Good


sex offender registration

Fifteen years ago, the mother of a kidnapping victim had a good idea--an idea that made a lot of sense. That idea involved the creation of a registry for use by law enforcement to track child molesters. Soon other states got on the bandwagon, and the classes of crime included in the registries mushroomed. Then those registries were shared with the public, voluntarily or under legal mandate. And then the public found out that there were sex offenders down the block (never mind that those "sex offenders" might have urinated outdoors after too much to drink late one night or had sexual relationships with girlfriends just a few years younger than themselves after they'd crossed the line into adulthood), and we didn't like it. New state laws cropped up across the country restricting where convicted sex offenders could live, and now, we're finally seeing the fruits of those frantic efforts. States are spending tens of millions of dollars to attempt to keep convicted sex offenders in stable places where they can be tracked, and losing the battled. Homelessness has skyrocketed among convicted sex offenders, and with it, the rate of recidivism.

Read More: Sex Offender Registration is Stupid






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