The trial lawyers’ lobby has a new technique for pressing its opposition to proposals that would reduce or eliminate liability for drug companies to manufacture vaccines.
Run a Google or Yahoo search for “bird flu” or “avian flu” and a sponsored link will pop up, leading to ads by a group called People Over Profits — which is actually a unit of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America. They bear such headlines as “Bird Flu and Viagra: What do they have in common?” and “President Bush and Bird Flu: What Bush is not telling you.” (The group also purchased the search term “Rafael Palmeiro,” not because he has anything to do with the issue but because the ballplayer gets Googled a lot in the steroids controversy.)
Now even Web searchers aren’t safe from lobbying! And since sponsors can monitor the traffic, says ATLA spokeswoman Chris Mather, “you can change your message during the day if it’s not working.”
(Howard Kurtz, “CIA Article Sidebar: A Story of Deja Vu”, Washington Post, Nov. 14). Of course, it’s more important for trial lawyers to have lawsuit opportunities than for manufacturers to be able to make vaccines. More: Apr. 11, Oct. 19, 2004, Dec. 24, 2003.
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