I hope demmies voted against this atrocity in large numbers?
Anyone know the Democratic Tally?
Levenson, a Cincinnati housewife, has been waiting for her heart to explode. In 1981, surgeons implanted a mechanical valve in her heart, the Bjork-Shiley, "the Rolls-Royce of valves," her doctor told her. What neither she nor her doctor knew was that several Bjork-Shiley valves had fractured during testing, years before her implant. The company that made the valve, a unit of the New York-based pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, never told the government.
At Pfizer's factory in the Caribbean, company inspectors found inferior equipment, which made poor welds. Rather than toss out bad valves, Pfizer management ordered the defects ground down, weakening the valves further but making them look smooth and perfect. Then Pfizer sold them worldwide.
When the valve's struts break and the heart contracts, it explodes. Two-thirds of the victims die, usually in minutes. In 1980, Dr. Viking Bjork, whose respected name helped sell the products, wrote to Pfizer demanding corrective action. He threatened to publish cases of valve strut failures.
A panicked Pfizer executive telexed, "ATTN PROF BJORK, WE WOULD PREFER THAT YOU DID NOT PUBLISH THE DATA RELATIVE TO STRUT FRACTURE." The company man gave this reason for holding off public exposure of the deadly valve failures: "WE EXPECT A FEW MORE." His expectations were realized. The count has reached eight hundred fractures, five hundred dead-so far.
Dr. Bjork called it murder, but kept his public silence.
Eight months after the "don't publish" letter, a valve was implanted in Mrs. Levenson. In 1994, the U.S. Justice Department nabbed Pfizer. To avoid criminal charges, the company paid civil penalties-and about $200 million in restitution to victims. Without the damning evidence prized from Pfizer by a squadron of lawyers, the Justice Department would never have brought its case.
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