Ambulance chasing lawyers - how publication of adverse drug reactions effects Internet-based solicitation of personal-injury litigants

a smug Mark Harvey from happier times when he thought everything was going his way

Serious adverse drug events can prompt personal-injury lawsuits. However, the extent to which biomedical publication regarding drug-induced harm can influence the legal process has not been well characterized. Using an advanced Google search strategy, we determined the number of Internet "hits" for websites soliciting plaintiffs for medicolegal action before and after publication of a study that highlighted the risk of dysglycemia among patients taking the antibiotic gatifloxacin. We found that early online release and print publication were associated with an immediate and sustained increase in the number of websites soliciting plaintiffs for legal action.

Figure 1: Average number of medicolegal Internet hits before and after publication of an article in the New England Journal of Medicine about the adverse events associated with gatifloxacin.

From:CMAJ. 2007 November 20; 177(11): 1369–1370.

doi: 10.1503/cmaj.070652.Copyright © 2007 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors



http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18025428