Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Rich Buttery Badness: The Case of Popcorn Workers’ Lung and the $100 Million Purse

Black lung was kid’s stuff. Have some trouble breathing, compounded likelihood of lung cancer if a smoker—nothing compared to asbestosis. Those sharp little asbestos fibers do a number cutting up the alveoli (air sacs) in your lungs. That’s the stuff of nightmares. But there’s a new kid in town stirring up trouble, a new occupational lung disease ready to give asbestosis a run for its money.

Popcorn lung. Sure, its ring name leaves something to be desired but its medical name of bronchiolitis obliterans is awfully sinister if you know a little Latin. It’s a rare disease limited pretty much to people exposed to diacetyl, a chemical that in sufficient quantities tastes buttery and is used as artificial butter in microwave popcorn.

The chemical's like an acid, causing a condition similar to scabbing an open wound in the sufferer's lungs, scar tissue replacing healthy tissue until the person can’t breathe properly. Like asbestosis, the effects are irreversible. No cure. Better luck next life. Removing the lung and replacing it with a transplant the only cure. And while you’re waiting for a lung, you can have an iron one breathe for you, attended by friendly RNs. Like we were living in a future. Maybe one where industry cares about it workers.

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking (I hear it on the train and at airports and it turns my stomach): “A few eggs to make an omelet. People get hurt at work all the time. Spilled milk. What about me? My family? My health?”

Well, ignoble reader, EPA says it’s safe for consumers (like aspartame). Feel free to eat handfuls and show your stubborn support for an unnecessary product (before Washington, D.C. comes and takes away another of your doggone, god-given, private citizen rights), but I’m going to go back (to the future? both seem like how 50s sci-fi would depict popcorn making in the year 2020) to the Real Genius or, if I can still find it, my old R2D2-style set-up.

Bronchiolitis obliterans has affected (perhaps the nicest way of putting it) microwave-popcorn workers in Missouri, Iowa, Ohio, New Jersey, Illinois, California, and Maryland.

CA will again lead the safe way (acceptable benzene levels in beverages, lead warnings, etc.), most likely banning the production of chemical in the Golden State in upcoming months and meanwhile The Governator’s (though he’ll always be Dr. Alex Hesse to me) pushing for a public awareness campaign--all this while OSHA’s still deciding what to do (it’s known about the dangers since 2001, so we could expect something in the next six years?).

Sometimes it takes a $100 million in damages (since blue collar workers turning blue from lung obliteration isn’t enough) to get legislators into action.

Envy all people, let none annoy thee.

Monday, May 14, 2007

The Difference between a Trial Lawyer and a Prostitute*

Wait, wait, stop me if you’ve heard this one. Oh, you have. Well, what's the difference between a vampire and a lawyer?** Yeah, I guess that’s kinda old. The difference between a lawyer and a catfish?***

There’s a slew of them. Some funnier than others. Almost all rubbing me the wrong way. I like to substitute “pharmaceutical rep” for lawyer or attorney when I tell mine. At least attorney’s serve a function.

Industry is ruled by a bottom-line. Personal injury lawyers, if they prey on anything, prey on the predators, taking a little of the abundant profits made on consumer misery and redistributing the wealth. I might be romanticizing, but they’re a little like this fellow from Sherwood—or this lady from Cali.

It’s a little like that Union bumper sticker: Safer workplaces brought to you by litigation. First asbestos. Lately benzene. And soon maybe popcorn lung (link pending).

Each one of these series of lawsuits is a step forward to safer workplaces, which does not necessarily mean (unlike what tort reform advocates suggest) higher insurance and costs but, rather, a higher standard of health for our fellow American workers and conscientious business practices. Lawyers are private citizens’ posse when the company store violates our rights, when government agencies can’t, haven’t, or won’t protect us, like in cases of stock fraud or nursing home abuse.

Industry cries abuses, like lawyers and disabled people invented mesothelioma and acute lymphocytic leukemia. Meanwhile, industries (like the big pharmaceuticals) market sickness, creating both the cure and the disease for such “crippling” (and questionable) ailments and "diseases" as restless legs syndrome and menopause. Perhaps, in some near future utopia, those suffering from sore jaws and unproductive or delayed stays in the restroom might be saved from chewing food and defecation—Mr. Gerber, meet Mrs. Metamucil. Industry reps, especially those in D.C., are like an orifice on the end of my elbow—right here, my elbow.

That’s the difference.


Envy all people, let none annoy thee.


* Clothes
** A vampire only sucks blood at night.
*** One is an ugly, scum sucking bottom-feeder and the other is a fish.
**** In fact, the only good joke I read—sure, it plays into that horrible lack of class consciousness and self-protection that serves the interest of big business, but it’s funny—was
Q: What do you call a lawyer gone bad?
A: Senator.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Hillbilly Heroin (or, for that man bites dog angle: Addictive Drug Found Addictive)

Oxycontin

$634.5 million in fines. Record-breaking. Yeah?

Funny that the case was brought up on mislabeling charges. Apparently “Hillbilly Heroin” is addictive. Oxycodone addictive? Who knew? Well, aside from this guy or this one or this mysterious (and convincing) ghost writer.

US Attorney John L. Brownlee won the case, so I suppose my Limbaugh-Gonzales conspiracy theories are unfounded ( click for a 404 error ).

But what’s also odd were the charges that Purdue Pharma drug reps urged doctors to prescribe OxyContin every 8 hours instead of the 12 hour dose. Odd not because drug companies are just in it for the money—or at least that 40% of their budgets dedicated to sales force and advertising (about twice the cost of R&D, i.e. the creation of a useful product and its safety testing), but odd because FDA suggests doctors be creative in their drug prescriptions—in essence and essentially and other hedging I might essay—giving doctors license to prescribe untested, off-label uses for drugs. I’ve written about this dangerous absurdity.)

So Rush gets some dittos from the media for not being able to know his body well enough to sense serious addiction and for blind trust of pill pushers.