No option for those killed or injured by medical devices

When it comes to scrutinizing the use of new medical devices, the FDA has fallen down on the job.

Two new studies find shortfalls in the Food and Drug Administration's approval process for heart devices such as pacemakers and stents. Safety targets often weren't clearly spelled out in the research submitted by device makers and important patient information was missing. . .
If you are killed or injured by a defective medical device, you can still sue the manufacturer though, right? No longer true. State products liability suits are no longer available. They have been preempted by the U.S. Supreme Court case of Riegel v. Medtronic. These two revelations demonstrate that safety of consumers of medical devices is not the highest consideration of lawmakers.

Continue ReadingNo option for those killed or injured by medical devices

South Africa’s rape problem

Until I read this BBC article, I had no idea the extent to which South Africa has a problem with rape. One out of every four girls in South Africa will be raped before she gets to be 16 years of age:

It is a fact that a woman born in South Africa has a greater chance of being raped, than learning how to read . . . The majority of the victims are 12 years old or younger. Many of the perpetrators are themselves children . . . Sexual violence pervades society, with one of the highest reported rates of rape in the world, and an alarmingly high incidence of domestic violence and child abuse.
The article indicates that many of the rape victims are babies. It is an utterly horrible situation.

Continue ReadingSouth Africa’s rape problem

Rape Amendment Passes

Al Franken's amendment to the new DoD appropriations bill has passed. Obama has signed it into law. This is the now infamous anti-rape amendment, which opens up and begins to hold accountable contractor abuse in cases involving sexual assault. The vote was 68-30, which is not exactly close. The thirty votes against? Republicans: Alexander (R-TN) Barrasso (R-WY) Bond (R-MO) Brownback (R-KS) Bunning (R-KY) Burr (R-NC) Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-MS) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Crapo (R-ID) DeMint (R-SC) Ensign (R-NV) Enzi (R-WY) Graham (R-SC) Gregg (R-NH) Inhofe (R-OK) Isakson (R-GA) Johanns (R-NE) Kyl (R-AZ) McCain (R-AZ) McConnell (R-KY) Risch (R-ID) Roberts (R-KS) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Thune (R-SD) Vitter (R-LA) Wicker (R-MS) Most of these people have not explained themselves, but have carped loudly afterward at their "characterization" as somehow pro-rape. An accusation Franken did not make. (Part of the heat around this has been generated by Franken's acrimonious row with Senator's Corker and Alexander, who co-wrote an op-ed piece condemning the amendment.) Senator Cornyn has been quoted in the after math thus:

Trying to tap into the natural sympathy that we have for this victim of this rape —and use that as a justification to frankly misrepresent and embarrass his colleagues, I don’t think it’s a very constructive thing.

Any embarrassment seems, however, to have been self-acquired in this case. Senator Sessions complaint about the amendment curiously misses the point of it while sounding a standard Republican note:

Continue ReadingRape Amendment Passes

Time for a national usury law?

First Premier Bank has just introduced its new 79% interest rate sub-prime credit card. No, that's not a typo, and some experts expect to see more credit cards with sky-high interest. Which makes me again bring up the topic of a national usury cap. Thomas Geoghegan recommended such a cap last year, in his article in The American Prospect. He suggested a credit card interest cap of 12% and a law completely barring payday loans.img_1180 I have filed several class action suits against large payday lenders (here's a post on one of those suits). These lenders often argue that people need these 400% interest loans for short term emergencies. At what cost, though? In my experience, these lenders are commonly stretching out these "short term" loans for many months. People who borrow $500 will pay $2000 in interest over the year and they will STILL OWE THE $500. Many states allow payday lenders to charge in excess of 1000% interest. These loans suck the very life out of working class folks. They amount to financial crack cocaine, because people often end up taking out a second, and a third payday loan in order to pay off the first one. It's a terrible mess and it's ruining lives. That's why 13 states have passed laws making sure that payday lenders cannot operate in those jurisdictions. It's time for the other states, and Congress, to get with the program. To put this all in perspective, remember the stories about "loan sharks?" Those were the good old days. "Simple nominal annual interest rates on extortionate mafia loan shark debts averaged 250%." Syndicate Loan-Shark Activities and New York's Usury Statute, 66 Colum. L. Rev. 167, 167 (1966). And here's another irony. The Bible clearly holds that usury is a sin comparable to murder. Usury is prohibited by Exodus 22:25: "If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury.” Usury is also prohibited by Leviticus 25:35-37. In spite of these Bible quotes, if you want to find lots of payday stores and payday lenders, look for geographical areas where you'll also find conservative Christians. That is the finding of Steven M. Graves and Christopher Peterson, in a law review article entitled "Usury Law and the Christian Right: Faith-Based Political Power and the Geography of American Payday Loan Regulation," 57 Cath. U. L. Rev. 637, 640 (2008):

We conclude, with a high degree of statistical certainty, that states with powerful conservative Christian populations tend to host relatively greater numbers of payday loan locations per capita as well as a greater commercial density of payday lenders. These findings propound a tragic and sad irony. Those states that have most ardently held to their pious Christian traditions have tended to become more infested with the progeny of money changers once expelled by Christ from the Hebrew temple. Legislators in those states, who have effectively used biblical principles to shape their legislative agenda on social and cultural issues, have failed to consistently apply biblical principles to economic legislation.

All it would take for Congress to outlaw payday loans is to write up a bill, have a majority of members of Congress approve of it, and then refer it to the President to sign it. But that can't happen these days because the financial services industry pays our politicians huge amounts of money so that they WON'T sign these sorts of bills. And, of course, with regard to Congress, the banks "frankly own the place."

Continue ReadingTime for a national usury law?

Border Incident

You may have heard about this by now. Biologist and science fiction writer Peter Watts was stopped on his way back into Canada by border guards. He'd been helping a friend in the United States move and he was returning. He was flagged to the side and the guards fell on his vehicle. He stepped out to ask what was going on, was told to get back in his vehicle, and when he asked again for the reason for the search, he was pepper sprayed, beaten, thrown in a lock-up overnight, and the next day sent into a winter storm on foot in shirtsleeves, all his personal property confiscated pending arraignment on charges of assaulting a federal officer. In his own words:

Along some other timeline, I did not get out of the car to ask what was going on. I did not repeat that question when refused an answer and told to get back into the vehicle. In that other timeline I was not punched in the face, pepper-sprayed, shit-kicked, handcuffed, thrown wet and half-naked into a holding cell for three fucking hours, thrown into an even colder jail cell overnight, arraigned, and charged with assaulting a federal officer, all without access to legal representation (although they did try to get me to waive my Miranda rights. Twice.). Nor was I finally dumped across the border in shirtsleeves: computer seized, flash drive confiscated, even my fucking paper notepad withheld until they could find someone among their number literate enough to distinguish between handwritten notes on story ideas and, I suppose, nefarious terrorist plots. I was not left without my jacket in the face of Ontario’s first winter storm, after all buses and intercity shuttles had shut down for the night.

In some other universe I am warm and content and not looking at spending two years in jail for the crime of having been punched in the face.

Here is a post on his behalf. A legal defense fund is being built by the writing community as you read this. The first thing, I admit, that occurred to me when I heard about it was a kind of reflexive "well, he must've said something," the kind of self apology for representatives of my government that springs automatically to mind. Because none of us want to believe that thugs and bullies work for us. I dismissed that idea. Watts is the least likely individual to provoke such a response. [more . . . ]

Continue ReadingBorder Incident