Over the past few years, an obscure legal concept called the preemption doctrine, has gained increasing currency in the Federal courts.

Basically, the concept is that if a medical product gets FDA approval, that this strips the consumer of any right to sue should it prove defective, even if deliberate wrong doing or a cover-up can be shown (think Viiox).

There has been a big push for this by Bush and His Evil Minions^™, because they believe that poor people should not be able to inconvenience large companies.

In fact, the FDA supported consumer lawsuits as a way to help keep medical companies on their toes until 2002.

It now appears that Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, is looking at eliminating this argument legislatively. He has started to hold hearings.

Point man for the Republicans is Connecticut’s 2nd most prominent prostitute^*, Christopher Shays, who vehemently argued the administration’s position, “juries of laymen shouldn’t be usurping the rigorous decision-making process of federal scientists.”

Seeing as how politically appointed laymen are, “usurping the rigorous decision-making process of federal scientists”, throughout the Bush administration, this seems to me to be awfully weak tea.

In any case, I would expect legislation some time in 2009.

^*Number 1 is Joe Lieberman….Come on, get with the program.