THE PAIN BROKERS

Extracting profits from pain.

In this lively and meticulously researched work, University of Georgia School of Law professor Burch examines a “legal system’s gritty underbelly, tracking a network of con men, bankrupt surgeons, chiropractors, medical funders, and lawyers who yearned to be insiders—all of them willing to do anything for a buck.” Specifically, the narrative centers on three women who received pelvic mesh implants and were pressured into removal procedures that would upend their lives and finances—all to the financial benefit of those at the top of, in the author’s words, a “mass tort gold mine.” Burch writes, “An estimated 10 million women worldwide have pelvic mesh in their bodies, and hundreds of thousands of them were suing. The case would be bigger than the BP oil spill and Vioxx combined. Once the leviathan of profit for companies like Johnson & Johnson and Boston Scientific, pelvic mesh was now the white whale of liability for mass tort plaintiffs’ attorneys.” The drive for profits goes far beyond basic care and services, and morphs into strange, separate worlds populated by predatory practices, Burch writes. Mass legal actions over mishaps in the medical realm offer a window into a system where the vulnerable serve as fodder for profiteering. Anyone who has watched late-night TV has heard the familiar words: “If you or a loved one has been injured…” These ads appeal to medical patients, consumers, and just about anyone who has encountered problematic products or services to call for legal representation, repair, and compensation for the harm that may have been caused. As Burch expertly shows, none of this is as simple or as safe as it might sound.

A clarion call for reform and change.