Date: Sun, 9 Apr 2000 20:06:29 -0700

To: Recipient List Suppressed:;

~~~ Ouch, ouch, OUCH! ~~~

To Respond:

Sunday, April 9, 2000

More Implant Injustice The federal government is suing for a cut of the multibillion-dollar fund established to settle breast-implant claims . Reimbursement supposedly is due Medicare and other federally funded health care programs for treatment of implant-related disorders. In reality, this is yet another corporate shakedown by the Clinton administration.

The lawsuit filed March 31 by the Justice Department seeks to halt settlement payments to thousands of women until federal expenditures are first recovered. A Justice spokesman said "millions" of dollars are owed, but acknowledged that no actual accounting has been conducted.

In a similar vein, the government also is delaying the emergence of Michigan-based Dow Corning Corp. from bankruptcy protection. Justice Department attorneys have filed objections to the company's court-approved reorganization plan, which commits $3.2 billion to settle tens of thousands of implant claims that forced Dow Corning's Chapter 11 filing. The government insists that Dow Corning first determine which claimants received federally financed medical care.

Two federal statutes - the Medical Care Recovery Act and the Medicare Secondary Payer Law - allow the government to sue for reimbursement when a third party is deemed liable for the medical conditions requiring treatment. But a slew of research - including the government's own - has consistently failed to establish any link between silicone breast implants and the myriad disorders cited by claimants. Simply put, Dow Corning and other medical device manufacturers are not liable, and none of the settlement agreements assign such liability.

Were it not for the feds, in fact, the industry would not be forfeiting billions of dollars to settle tens of thousands of unwarranted claims. The Food and Drug Administration in 1992 largely provoked the tort frenzy by effectively banning breast implants despite the total absence of an implant link to disease. But no company could afford to litigate the flood of claims that followed. That the Clinton administration now intends to profit from such injustice is, frankly, repellent.

The pattern here is unmistakable. Be it tobacco products, guns or implants, the government seeks to enrich itself at the expense of industry. And the consequences are grave. The implant jihad, for example, created an acute shortage of life-saving silicone-based medical devices.

Taxpayers may derive some comfort in knowing that Washington at least makes some attempt to recoup expenditures for which third parties are responsible. But fear is more appropriate when government derives ever greater power by what is essentially extortion from its citizens.

The federal government's grab for a share of the settlement money in breast implant suits is unjust.

Government should be reimbursed for the cost of treating those who have been injured by breast implants.

Copyright 2000, The Detroit News