After the debilitating accident, the Colorado woman was left unable to return to work and now supports her four children on Social Security disability payments.

This is just one example of the arrogance of insurers nationwide who want to cherry pick who they cover and arbitrarily look for excuses to cancel coverage in the middle of serious illnesses or injuries- just at the time you need your coverage the most! Kudos to the Colorado jurors for making the insurers pay a heavy price for their ill-advised actions. If more jurors will make similar gutsy rulings, insurance companies will be forced to deal with all of us in the fair manner we all deserve and expect.

This is the first trial in the country of a claim involving the bone-strengthening drug. Worse news for Novartis is the effect the verdict will likely have on 500 other consolidated Zometa cases currently pending in New Jersey state courts and federal court in Tennessee.

In the Montana case the plaintiff developed serious dental and jaw-related problems after taking Zometa for several years. Her condition is incurable and will result in lifelong disability. Her lawsuit alleged Novartis knew patients taking Zometa were vulnerable to a degenerative jaw disorder called osteonecrosis or bone death, particularly patients who undergo invasive dental procedures such as tooth extraction. She claimed Novartis failed to adequately warn her or her doctors of the risks.

At trial Novartis was accused of playing down the drug’s risks and obscured and delaying the release of information to the public and medical community in order to control the public relations fallout from the disclosure and maximize their marketing of the drug. Internal emails introduced at trial showed Novartis knew of the drug’s risk through its own extensive research communicated by its medical research and marketing departments to company executives who actually tried to suppress the information.

Novartis claimed their warnings were adequate and the risks were included in their labels. According to the plaintiff’s attorney the Zometa label is on a small piece of paper in tiny print that is barely readable and folded 20 times like an accordion. If the label were printed in normal 12 point font it would be 22 pages long.

This is just the latest egregious example of a drug manufacturer putting profit over patient safety. The only way the public has to put a stop to this type of activity is to bring successful products liability cases in court that forces these giant corporations to do the right thing and inform consumers and the doctors prescribing these drugs.

In addition to the two women involved in these lawsuits, over 6 million women have taken hormone-replacement medicines to treat their menopause symptoms. Pfizer combined their estrogen-based drug Premarin with progestin-laden Provera to make the drug Prempro. Sales of hormone-replacement drugs topped $2 billion annually until a 2002 U.S. National Institute of Health Women’s Health Initiative Study suggested women using these medicines had a higher breast cancer risk.

The Philadelphia jury ordered the punitive damages because they found the drugmaker’s conduct was willful and wanton including their executives’ hiding Prempro’s cancer risks to pump up sales and the company’s use of ghostwritten articles in medical journals to market the drug and deflect criticism of their actions.

This jury verdict, along with three others won by plaintiffs recently, may be sending a message to the giant drugmakers that consumers have had enough of being the unwitting victims of profit over patient safety. These types of verdicts are the only way individuals have to force these huge companies to face justice for their negligent actions. That’s why its critically important to publicize the facts of what happened to these individual plaintiffs so their rights are not trampled by the heavily-funded lobbying by big business for tort reform designed to insulate themselves from liability.

The plaintiff was a newlywed with a 25-year old wife who was 3-months pregnant. A witness, who happened to be another 18-wheeler driver behind the defendant, testified that the defendant driver never slowed or swerved before crushing the Tollway truck. He also told the jury that the left lanes were free and clear, so the accident was entirely avoidable.

The defendant admitted negligence, but contended that Illinois Tollway was also negligent in the accident for not protecting the plaintiff’s decedent. Illinois Tollway denied any negligence in this case. After a trial that lasted 6 days, the jury found the defendant and their semi-truck driver at fault. The jury found Illinois Tollway not guilty.

The state caps have been enacted at the urging of the medical profession and insurance industry through their heavily-financed tort reform initiatives. The cap amounts vary from state to state, in large part due to the varied strength of the medical and insurance lobby in each state. Louisiana has medical malpractice limits of $500,000. Maryland limits recovery in general medical liability cases at $650,000 and wrongful death claims to $812,500. Georgia’s statute caps medical damages at $350,000. Illinois caps damages at $500,000. The question of constitutionality deals with whether the caps so infringe on a judge or jury’s power to determine appropriate damage awards that it violates the patient’s equal protection rights, especially for the severely injured.

As we nationally debate the rising cost of health care and how to increase access to health care to the millions of uninsured, we must be mindful of not doing so on the backs of the average citizen who already faces inadequate access to damage recovery by these state liability caps. We should strike a balance and begin making the health care providers and medical insurers do their share of reining in the soaring costs of health care and medical insurance as well, not just by slamming the door of the courthouse to innocent victims of medical malpractice.

They also argue that high medical malpractice awards drive up the cost of medical malpractice insurance making it unaffordable. However, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office did a study of states with their own laws controlling medical malpractice lawsuits and found that last year the savings achieved by limiting medical liability amounted to less than 0.5 percent. It found no proof that limits on medical liability has reduced “defensive medicine”. They found no reduction in expensive and unnecessary test and procedures ordered by doctors to reduce the risk of lawsuits.

Louisiana is one such state that limits medical liability. A qualified health care provider is limited to $100,000 of exposure in a medical malpractice case. The victim of medical negligence is capped at $500,000 plus medical bills in what he can recover no matter what his or her actual losses are. The health care provider is responsible for the first $100,000 and the remaining $400,000 is paid by the Patient Compensation Fund. Capping and eliminating patient’s rights to recover is not the answer. Contact your congressman today and demand they vote NO on medical liability caps.