With the election of Barack Obama and a Democratic majority in the US House and Senate, Americans have overwhelmingly indicated they are tired of getting the short end of every stick. For too long ordinary Americans have borne the brunt of the neo-conservatives’ drive to sacrifice individual rights for the sake of their big contributors’ bottom lines…we have rejected their mantra “profits at any cost for corporations and manufacturers.”
Rights enjoyed by ordinary citizens for years have been systematically limited, restricted or outright abolished by relentless Bush-era legislation fueled by big business political contributions. The U.S. Supreme Court is now dominated by conservative members who tend to look first to the interests of business over the rights of the little guy.
But the tide appears to be turning. Recently, legislation has been introduced to repeal or correct some of the more egregious results of Bush Administration and resulting court opinions. The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act has been introduced to address the serious problems of lack of appropriate oversight of our nation’s food supply. The Medical Device Safety Act is now being debated in Congress. This proposed legislation will restore the rights of victims of faulty medical devices to pursue their claims against the manufacturer even if the FDA had approved them for sale to the public. Even the Supreme Court, in its most recent decision, restored the right to sue a drugmaker for injuries caused by a defective drug that had been approved by the FDA.
These are just the first ripples in the tide of change. We must be vigilant and vocal in our support of these and similar future measures designed to restore our individual rights. You can be sure the big business groups are gearing up to raise huge amounts of money to fund their horde of lobbyists to fight every attempt to change the laws to favor us.
Richard J. Arsenault, 2011
