Tort reform

Dear editor:

Tort reform is a bad thing for consumers. It does nothing to help consumers or doctors, only those who are being sued and insurance companies. It limits damages and discourages attorneys from taking on cases on a contingency basis and especially class action suits.

The pharmaceutical industry has been suffering major lawsuits that we never hear about on mainstream media because of all the advertising they do with them. They could restore the truth in advertising laws. At times it appears as if nearly half of the commercials are trying to convince us to buy this or that drug.

Currently, there are 7,000 lawsuits against makers of a testosterone drug and 3,500 are against one company, AbbVie, which controls 70 percent of the market. They've been losing suits in the multimillions, yet they will not recant their fraudulent practices of misleading the public, nor does the government or FDA do anything about them.

For starters, pharmaceutical companies should be banned from commercial advertising of products that require a prescription, which would then free up media to disclose these issues to the public. The public needs to demand that our lawmakers do something other than limit damages via tort reform for fraudulent corporations or create gag laws that only protect criminal companies and punish whistleblowers instead of protecting the public.

Also, be nice to not have terms and conditions requiring we waive our constitutional rights under the Seventh Amendment to sue or enter into a class action, as well, and GOP blocked the CFPB from implementing just such a rule in 2017.

Vote against tort reform in Arkansas and demand protection of all our constitutional rights, not just a select few.

Judith Zitko

Hot Springs Village