They sue on behalf of plaintiffs said to be suffering health ills caused by an accident or toxic exposure. Such claims must rely on a diagnosis, especially when there s doubt as to the severity of a complainant s health problems or the extent to which those problems arose from the sued-over conduct. They refer new clients to favored doctors and send samples to favored labs. They shape clients views of their medical condition and its likely prognosis by steering them to the right literature, seminars and peer support groups. But when diagnosis veers from scientific truth, as doctors know, all sorts of unpleasant consequences follow.
Some patients develop the symptoms predicted for their disease.
Other clients will believe that their joint pain, wheezing or neurological symptoms have been accounted for and cease to pursue the question, though in fact they re suffering from some serious and genuine disease unrelated to the litigation. When trial lawyers stoked a national panic over the supposed effects of the morning sickness drug Bendectin in causing birth defects, numerous women who d used the drug underwent abortion of fetuses they were carrying, though there was and is no reason to think the resulting babies would have been any less healthy than babies generally. According to their attorney, Larry Doherty, the lawyers were out there scaring people to death with stories of how the people could expect brain damage, deformed babies, cancer deaths and everything else. There was never any medical basis for any of it. The people were sold a bill of goods about cancer and mutations, and led to believe that the chemical company caused them mental anguish.