Tucked away near the bottom of today's news is a brief story stating that a Georgia pharmacy is issuing a recall on the drug Avastin, commonly prescribed for macular degeneration. The reason is that the lot in question of this drug has been linked to eye infections. Admittedly, this is not top-of-the-page news even for a personal injury attorney, but it's just another reminder of the way we all take it for granted how the combined power of the threat of lawsuits and regulation makes companies behave in ways that protect all of our safety.
If all the personal injury lawyers in the world dissappeared tomorrow, we know there are lots of people who wouldn't shed a tear. However, it's important to realize that the folks who would be dancing the most vigorous jigs would be owners and investors in large businesses that would no longer have to worry about lawsuits on behalf of injured employees and consumers.
We'd all like to think that simple human decency, plus the threat of bad public relations, would keep responsible parties from placing innocent people in danger. The problem is, without a single personal injury lawyer to file a lawsuit, not only would we lose a gigantic, albeit negative, financial incentive for companies to pay close attention to the safety of their products and workplaces -- we'd even lose the public relations damage a company that doesn't pay attention to safety should suffer. When was the last time you read a news story about a personal injury allegedly caused by a company or organization where a lawsuit by either an individual or a government agency wasn't involved?
Like us or not, if you want to stay safe, you need us.
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