I very much enjoyed the Santorum blog. The fact that a political leader is caught in being a hypocrite is not new, but we need to shine more light on just these perverse facts. Where is Santorum's sense of fairness? Yet another example of political hypocrisy. Where are the real leaders who we can respect because they are straight with the public and live the values they preach?
The Administration's tort reform policy was just a bone to corporations, the true benefactors of the Bush Administration. It is becoming even more clear that what is good for big business is the driving consideration of this Administration.

Unfortunately, the average leader who we gets very far is quite easily made to forget about what being a real leader is all about.

When a bunch of Gomers in Texas award a 66 year old Wal*Mart shelf stacker's widow $ 236 million because he took Vioxx at his doctor's recommendation, I daresay that some sort of tort reform is advisable.

Most of the documents from the Santorum trial are at my website, if anyone wants to look.

"Gomers in Texas"? What a nice way to refer to the constitutional guarantee to a jury of one's peers.

The fact is, most of that that award was punitive damages for the exact amount of profit that Merck made on Vioxx between the time that they knew that it was harmful and the time that they actually pulled it from the market (in response to lawsuits).

In products liability litigation concerning pharmaceuticals, one of the factual issues is the benefits vs. risks of a drug. Vioxx offered no new benefits over any other drug that was already on the market, besides making money for Merck. The risks, on the other hand were substantial. But, Merck chose to obscure those risks.

Another relevant legal standard is the duty to warn. Internal Merck documents that came out at trial revealed that the company actually trained their sales representatives to obfuscate and prevaricate in response to questions from doctors about the cardiovascular and other risks associated with Vioxx. The training program for sales reps was called "Dodgeball."

If a company rushes a drug to market without doing the requisite studies on risks recommended by their own scientists, as Merck did, agressively pushes the drug to doctors while obscuring the risks to patients, and then delays pulling it from the market when the risks are known for the simple reason that they're making money hand over fist while thousands of people are being put at risk of serious health problems and even death... that's your idea of a reason for tort reform?

I hope Merck gets socked for many more multi-million dollar verdicts as a warning to them and other reckless, profit-hungry drug companies. And I hope you reconsider your exceedingly ignorant position in light of how that widow might actually feel about the loss of her husband, who was taking a drug for knee pain and suddenly dropped dead.

Slander is not good at anytime. If you want to get rid of someone why don't you just go down the voting record and do the report card thing. It would be positive and less stressful. While you're at it,ask which committees he has been involved with and the time periods of the terms with any actions he can speak of that are not 'top secret' or ' high security'; bugetary allocations in relation to the defense budget and faith-based compassion money may be a good contextual piece for intelligent civil discourse.
It's time we rose to a higher standard of dialogue when removing person(s) from their role as a public servant. The 'old way' isn't done with the moral fortitude necessary for presence at the global table and smacks of ...well our own character issues as individuals and a nation.
When really all we want to do is say: " Thank you very much for your previous service as a public servant in the United States of America. You have now become a liability to the best domestic and foreign interests of this country. Thanks for your previous participation. Good luck in your new position. The party is at so and so's place. Sorry it had to end this way." Shake a hand, pat a back; and that's it. This definitely would be less stressful, painful and time consuming for the man's whole family. I am not into the unmaking of Santorium or any other human being. Just state the facts and switch the agenda (if you want to). Plus it's cheaper.