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7/29/2004

How has John Stossel not been fired by ABC yet?

ABC's John Stossel, in an apparent homage to Nell Carter, says "Gimme a Break" to John-Boy Edwards and the rest of his contemptable trial lawyer ilk.

Vice presidential candidate Edwards made millions of dollars by doing good, say his supporters.

He was a personal injury lawyer who punished bad doctors and was awarded money for those who were victims of malpractice. He won't give the total of how much money he made doing that, but in just the four years before he became a senator, he made over $26 million.

Lawyers were the biggest contributors to his presidential campaign, and now they've become the biggest givers to the Democratic Party — bigger than labor unions, corporations — bigger than anybody.

Trial lawyers comprise one of the most powerful professions in America, yet we rarely hear about the unintended consequences of what they do, and how the lawsuits they pursue impact our lives.

What Stossel assumes - and in my opinion, incorrectly - is that the consequences are unintended. It's not so much that they're unintended - they're simply ignored. The only thing that shysters like Edwards (and Dickie Scruggs - who Stossel also notes made $1 BILLION off of suing big bad tobacco) care about is the truckloads of money that pull up at their doors after a successful case.

And how have lawyers like Edwards helped to take a dump on the health care system?

"That fear (litigation) is always there," said obstetrics professor Dr. Edgar Mandeville. "Everybody walks in mortal fear of being sued."

The Department of Health and Human Services found doctors order painful tests they consider unnecessary, for fear of being sued. And the majority of doctors say they recommended invasive procedures more often than they believed were medically necessary in an effort to prevent potential litigation.

I asked Scruggs if he thought that was accurate, and he said, "That's probably true … but why do they do it? … They make more money, the more they do."

But the doctors say it's because of fear of the lawyers.

"Well I would say that too, if I were gouging someone and wanted to get away with it and blame it on somebody else," said Scruggs.

Sounds like a typical bastard. Speaking of bastards, how about Edwards' $26 million plus profit from suing doctors for cerebral palsy based on junk science?

Vice presidential candidate Edwards made millions suing doctors and hospitals on behalf of people whose children had been born with cerebral palsy.

Cerebral palsy is a central nervous system defect that makes it hard for people to control their muscles. At the time of Edwards' cases, the defect was often said to be caused by a lack of oxygen to the baby's brain during delivery. Edwards and other lawyers have argued that if the doctor involved had only done a Caesarean section, the child's cerebral palsy could have been prevented.

He won a record verdict in a cerebral palsy case after he told the jury he was speaking for the injured infant, in the womb. He was very convincing and the jury awarded his clients over $6 million. Scruggs told me, "Wouldn't you want your lawyer to be just as clever and just as effective?"

One thing doctors may have learned from these kinds of cases was to do more C-sections. The procedure is more common today for many reasons, including scheduling convenience, but doctors say fear of a cerebral palsy lawsuit has had a big impact.

Since 1970 C-sections have gone from 6 percent of all births to 26 percent. "And there has not been one small decrease in the cerebral palsy rate across the board," said Mandeville.

As I posted earlier this month - the fact that Edwards pretended to channel an unborn baby while talking to the jury only reinforces the fact that he's an absolute scumbag.

While Stossel doesn't mention Edwwards' ability to speak to the unborn and relay their messages to juries, he does point out the ways in which these trial lawyers cost us all money - and impact our safety. I don't know how he's managed to keep a job at ABC.