Ads Press Frist Over Malpractice Suits
Associated Press
April 20, 2003


Most interest groups target congressmen on the fence when they want to influence an issue.

But when Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) returns from a 10-day Asian trip Tuesday he'll find that a group opposed to his pro-medical malpractice reform stance is running television ads against him in Memphis.

"Traditionally, those who have led these kinds of fights have done so without feeling the appropriate pressure for what they've done in their home districts and home states," said Joanne Doroshow, executive director of the Center for Justice and Democracy and a spokesman for Americans for Insurance Reform, a coalition of consumer, labor and activist groups sponsoring the ads.

…

Two of the three 30-second ads feature people who say they've been victimized by malpractice.

In one ad, Vernon and Shawnna Gardner of South Dakota relate how their 2-year-old son Owen died of dehydration after being taken to a hospital.

"All he needed was an IV," says Shawnna Gardner. Her husband adds, "They lose one of their sons or daughters to medical malpractice and they won't be concerned about putting caps on damages."

In the other, a Wisconsin woman, Linda McDougal, says both her breasts were removed after a medical lab mistakenly reported she had cancer.

"A group of politicians wants to take my right to a trial by jury away," she says.

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