Comments and Commentaries from Bob Dorigo Jones

It’s almost impossible to turn on a TV news program these days without hearing about the growing Ebola crisis, but did you know there’s another infectious disease now spreading across America at a record rate? I bring this up for a couple of reasons: 1) many people aren’t aware of it even though it has serious public health ramifications, and 2) it’s partly rooted in an abusive lawsuit that went terribly wrong, and this blog was created to raise public awareness about how abuse of the civil justice system is affecting our lives.

The disease is measles, and according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there have been three times more cases of measles reported in 2014 than in any year since the disease was thought to have been eliminated in the US.

The obvious question is, “Why?” Don’t we have a vaccine for measles?

The answer is, yes, there is a vaccine, and it’s why measles was virtually eliminated in the United States 14 years ago.  However, something very disturbing happened around that time that many experts believe is largely responsible for the return of measles and other infectious diseases like whooping cough and chicken pox to our communities.

In 1998, a medical researcher working on behalf of lawyers suing vaccine makers manufactured evidence that he thought would help them win the case and bring them huge amounts of money.  To bolster the lawsuit, he claimed that he had found 12 children that developed autism after receiving vaccines.  The news spread like wildfire, and all of a sudden, many parents began to question whether they were doing the right thing by having their children vaccinated.  Some of them decided not to.

What they didn’t know, however, was that there was a big problem with the research.  That problem wouldn’t be revealed until 2011 when the British Medical Journal published a blockbuster report that showed the supposed “research” that sparked that fear about vaccines was fraudulent.  According to the Journal, “three of the 12, it turns out, had never been diagnosed with autism and others displayed symptoms long before they received vaccines.”

Daniel Fisher, writing for Forbes, pointed out at the time that the fraudulent research was tailor-made for litigation. “Science designed to serve the courtroom.” I highly recommend his column.

In the years since then, some news outlets have reported on the comeback of infectious diseases – like Time magazine did in this March, 2014 article — and have cited parents’ fears over vaccines as a major reason for the dramatic rise in these diseases.  However, in general, they have done a poor job of reporting why those fears arose in the first place and that the reason for those fears has been exposed as a fraud.

Dr. Paul A. Offit, the Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, is one of the leaders in the medical community who is working to set the record straight.  He says dozens of studies have exonerated vaccines as a cause of autism, but too many people are unaware of these studies.  In his book, Deadly Choices, How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All, he delves deeply into other frauds that have been perpetrated and the terrible effect they have had on public health.

Many now fear that if the media doesn’t start reporting on this litigation-fueled fraud, more and more people will decide to forgo vaccinations because they only know half the story.  In the meantime, infectious diseases that we once thought were eradicated will continue to spread. Last year, US News & World Report revealed that in 2012, “the United States had the highest number of whooping cough cases since 1955” resulting in 18 deaths.

This is an epic tragedy considering all of the technology and medical research available today. As Paul Harvey would have said, it’s time for the rest of the story to be told.

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You don’t have to be the parent of a teenage driver to have a special interest in any device that would make it impossible to use a cell phone while driving, but if you are, you’ll definitely want to know about this story. I strongly suspect it will also be of great interest to anyone who occasionally texts while driving and knows they should stop.

I fall into both of those categories, so I was especially intrigued to learn recently about a former engineer for NASA who has invented what many safety experts believe is the “holy grail” solution to distracted driving. I was also bothered (but not surprised) to hear why it’s not on the market after getting tremendous support from several key allies in this effort.

Scott Tibbitts is the engineer/entrepreneur who has worked on this amazing “gadget” for the past five years, and he and his company were recently featured in an article in the New York Times.  It’s a captivating story, beginning with his inspiration for ending cell phone-related distracted driving.  Tragically, a business executive with whom he was scheduled to meet one day in 2008 was killed hours before their meeting by a teenager who was texting while driving.

We all know that using a cell phone while driving can be extremely dangerous, and stories like that are too common.  In fact, every day, nine people die on American roads because of someone who has been distracted by texting, talking or emailing on a cell phone.  According to another story in Newsmax:

An estimated one in five crashes occurred through distracted driving, and 69 percent of drivers in the U.S. between the ages of 18 and 64 said they talk on their cell phones and 31 percent say they read or send text messages or email while driving, according to the CDC. This includes nearly half of all U.S. high school student drivers.

Safety experts have long searched for the perfect solution to this problem, but so far, the cell phone apps that have been created to stop distracted driving are not widely used and the state laws that have been passed to motivate drivers to do the right thing are regularly ignored.

So, when Tibbitts was able to find a way to use a “telematics” port found in all cars manufactured since 1996 to shut down phone use when a car is moving, he quickly drew the attention of these experts.  However, it was the attention and support he drew from some in the insurance and cell phone industries that led many to believe his device might finally be the perfect solution.

Tibbitts was able to convince insurance giant, American Family Insurance, to invest a significant amount of money in his venture.  He also got Sprint to allow his company to use its networks to stop texts.  It was the first time this had happened, so it looked like everything was lining up perfectly for the device to be brought to market.

Unfortunately, just when all of the technological hurdles were cleared, an old, familiar problem popped up to keep it off the market: lawsuit fears.

As the Times reports, Sprint executives worried about:

“what would happen if the technology let one text slip through, and someone reading the message became involved in a crash. That could be a financial liability for the company, and a tragedy. ‘If that one message does get through, and someone understood, “I bought this and I’ll be safe,” what does that mean for our brand and our business?’” said a vice president for business and product development at Sprint.

A spokesperson for Sprint now says: “It’s a matter of working out the legal issues. The legal uncertainty — that’s the major issue.” So far, the daunting legal hurdle is the only one they haven’t been able to clear.

It’s certainly not the first time that legal concerns have robbed American consumers of a wonderful product, but it is especially disturbing to hear that once again, an amazing invention could potentially save three thousand lives a year and prevent more than 300,000 injuries is stalled in its tracks because of lawsuit fears.

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…a label found on a cell phone battery booster.  It warns: “Get rid of children.”

What?? Is that a mistranslation, or is there something else going on with that label? I provide the inside story on that in an op-ed posted today on Townhall.com.

That label was selected as the grand prize winner of the Center for America’s 17^th annual Wacky Warning Labels™ Contest by a studio audience during a recent taping of Stossel on the Fox Business Channel.  Congratulations to Larry Klein of Costa Mesa, California who won $1,000 for finding that label and sending it to us.

Second place and $500 was awarded to Mark Lengel of Novi, Michigan for a warning he found on a football helmet.  It warns: “No helmet system can protect you from serious brain and/or neck injuries including paralysis or death.  To avoid these risks, do not engage in the sport of football.”

That might not be as wacky as some of our previous winners like the warning on a baby stroller that says: “Remove child before folding,” but it was included as a finalist this year because it underscores how whacked-out the American civil justice system has become. Manufacturers now feel that they have to warn their potential customers to consider not buying their product despite the fact that it is tested and proven safe!

The third place prize of $250 went to Tim Weibel of Grand Island, New York. Tim found a label on a sheet of peel and stick decals he received from the Buffalo Bills. The decals look great on bike helmets, skateboards and scooters, but the label warns: “Decals are for decoration only and will not prevent you from any bodily harm or injury.”

Ever since announcing the winners on John Stossel’s show, we have been doing interviews around the country to: 1) have a laugh at the expense of the personal injury lawyers who make these labels necessary, 2) explain how the fear of being sued for injuries they didn’t cause is forcing product makers to put these common sense labels on their products, and 3) to reveal how the cost of all of these lawsuits has become a burden on American consumers and our economy.

Sometimes, we don’t know whether to laugh or cry when we see these warnings, but they help us raise public awareness of the litigation problem in America and get people talking about potential solutions.

Do you have a wacky label on a product lying around your house?  Keep your eyes peeled, because it could be our next $1,000 grand prize winner!

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