As outrageous as some malpractice awards are, they only account for one percent of health care costs. The real harm comes from the ability of these judgments to drive professionals and manufacturers out of business. Even worse, judgments have been made with disdain for the truth. Despite evidence that complications during labor and delivery are not responsible for the large majority of cases of cerebral palsy, lawyers find such litigation lucrative and obstetricians find their insurance premiums overwhelming. Not long after the verdict the authors of the study discredited their own study saying it should never have been published since the reservations and qualifications written into published papers are routinely ignored.
Clinical ecologists believe trace chemicals in the environment cause all kinds of maladies.
Tests relied on by the ecologists were developed by Schossman's research team at Harvard and Schossman discredited their use of his material. The students in their essays, considered the proliferation of lawsuits to be such a major cause of our social problems that they contributed enough material to focus an entire book on the subject. What That Means To The Nation. In 1981 a British study suggested its use might account for brain damage for every 310,000 immunizations. That was all American lawyers needed to hear to launch an avalanche of cases blaming the vaccine for epilepsy and any disease they could possibly relate to the brain.