Physicians could become the targets of opportunity for lawyers in high profile “Active Shooter” cases, as an unanticipated outcome of the Administration’s move against guns as a result of school and other shooting events.
As gun owners resist the facile “gun violence” label and force a look at the incidents involved, the fact-finding is leading to a growing commonality of message with patients-rights groups and class-action lawyers. But the message also could put physicians in line for potential malpractice claims if the shocking link to psycho-active drugs proves out.
This video begins to build a case for a drug prescription link to many “Active Shooter” cases.
In another posting, a litany of researched school shooting and violent events and their link to prescription drugs is detailed for easy use by legislators, lawyers, and physicians. http://ssristories.com/index.php?sort=what&p=school
Television trailers are currently being featured on a film with a coincidentally similar theme of the possible link between a medication and murder. Like many other seemingly coincidental media overlaps, the combined synergy can lead to political and social implications. When backed by more than 2/3rds of the US population looking for solutions and answers to the question of who and what is responsible for violence in the country, America’s lawyers will not be far behind.
While many may want to put legal blame on the firearms industry or entertainment media, it seems likely that the manufacturers of psychiatric drugs and the physicians who prescribed them in the high profile cases of violence are likely to be high on the list of nominees for legal liability.
Under current law, hypothetically, the victims of crime and their families would likely seek individual or class action litigation against manufacturers, who in turn would likely defend on the factual basis for claiming causation, the “FDA approved it”, and the “well the doctor prescribed it” defenses.
Patient perpetrators, their families, and estates in a hypothetical active shooter case might bring actions in such a case against the individual physician who prescribed the drugs on malpractice allegations. There the issues will again be focused on factual causation, but the physician will likely be left holding the bag on because the FDA defense relies on the “learned intermediary” physician or pharmacist to use appropriate clinical judgment.