The American Association for Justice (AAJ) recently released a statement exposing a current study by drug companies that was done to discredit personal injury attorneys. AAJ stated that the study was faulty and poorly researched by basing their facts entirely on Google searches. AAJ represents lawyers who have the interest of injured individuals at hand and continues to lead their Fight for Justice Campaign which fights “studies” like these by making sure people are receiving both accurate and useful information from journalists.
The false report was released by the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest (CMPI) and highlighted by the American Tort Reform Association (ATRA). The report criticized personal injury attorneys as well as declaring that people who look online for medical advice often receive unreliable information from class action and litigation sites. The ATRA is now calling for congressional failure to notice hearings and for all State Bar associations to require lawyers to identify themselves on websites they sponsor.
AAJ rapidly responded to this false claim by stating that this new study is “laughable at best” and exposing that the tort reform group, Pacific Research Institute, funds CMPI along with sharing an executive with a Public Relations firm who conveniently represents major pharmaceutical manufacturers.
A statement by AAJ President Kathleen Flynn Peterson poses to ask the important question, “Don’t you think the fact that the pharmaceutical industry spends nearly twice as much on promotion then it does research is much more harmful to Americans?”
PLoS Medicine, a peer-reviewed journal published by the Public Library of Science, recently published a study about the pharmaceutical industry and money spent on promotions vs. research and development.
PLoS has found that the amount of promotional meetings pharmaceutical companies have each year have increased dramatically from 120,000 in 1998 to 371,000 in 2004. Also found was that in the year 2000, the top ten pharmaceutical companies were spending roughly $1.9 billion on 314,000 such promotional activities.
In the end, the study confirms the common view that most drug companies are out to make money first and promote their own image rather then spend the necessary amount of money on research and in helping consumers live.
Founding partners Kyle Bachus and Darin Schanker of Bachus & Schanker, LLC are both members of AAJ, with Bachus being on the Board of Governors. The attorneys at Bachus & Schanker care about those who are injured in an accident and are avid activists for consumer rights. To find out more about our firm and how we can help you in your personal injury claim, please click here.
