Legal Aid withdrawn for Epilim birth defects case

[BlackSwan]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12242857

I find this depressing. Just makes you realise that there are no consequences for big pharmaceutical companies - no responsibility to families and unborn children.

My heart goes out to the families affected. Shame on our government for letting this one go.

bump - even more depressing as no-one seems that interested.

They are restricting legal aid in lots of cases now because of financial restrictions/recession etc. I suppose this is just one more. It is notoriously difficult to sue big drug companies. Perhaps thats why the plug is pulled.

My friend was affected by this drug. Her child has spina bifida, epilepsy and hydrocephalus along with multiple other disorders.
The child has had many complex operations simply to improve quality of life.
The family spend fortunes on equipment (no, it is not always provided free!) and has had to move house, and have many adaptations made so that the wheelchair can be used throughout the house and the child can have some degree of independence.

This legal case has been in preparation for SIX YEARS.

It has already cost millions in legal aid. It is about to come to court.

Why would legal aid be withdrawn when the case is almost over? The money has already been spent in preparing this case.

It couldn't have anything to do with the amount of money the government gets from the pharmacutical companies...could it?

amistillsexy - would hardly be a surprise if money were at the bottom of it...

Aren't there any law firms prepared to act on contingency basis?

I'm so sorry for your friend.

I's a wider issue too - nobody can deny something went really wrong in the process of prescribing these women a drug which harmed their babies. Isn't there a real public need to get to the bottom of it, lest it happens again? I have zero faith in government or pharmaceutical companies in getting it right, because there's no 'stick' to ensure they try to get it right. There's no accountability, no monetary risk.

The LSC assess cases at this stage, ie before the final hearing, as they don't fund cases unless there is a realistic prospect of sucess. Presumably there wasn't in this case. The test is whether someone with the means to fund the case would risk the cost of taking the case to court given the risk of losing.

As for taking it on a no win-no fee basis, a case such as this would bankrupt many firms if they lose. I'm not sure that it's up to the legal community to bear the risk of people losing their cases. If the case was clear cut at the start there wouldn't need to be all this money spent upon it.

After all, we dont't refuse to pay doctors who fail to cure a patient do we?

I know - I face possible unemployment myself due to that. Short sighted cuts, without a real understanding of the good work that gets done for very little to help very needy cases.

The Epilim case has nothing to do with this however. The proposed changes are not retrospective.

There was a programme on R4 about this the other week here.

It does sound pretty appalling.

Resolution - to split hairs - the question the LSC asks is whether the case has a 'reasonable' prospect of success, not a 'realistic' one. A court case is always a horse-race, always. No such thing as a clear cut court case.

Sir Menzies Campbell MP is right on this one - the LSC is playing judge and jury in these cases. Of course not all cases deserve funding and of course class-actions are invariably expensive, long and drawn out. However, as a society we are letting powerful defendants off the hook. Powerful in that they have endless resources to fight legal battles and powerful in that they medicate us.

There is a legitimate claim here - the drug caused birth defects, clearly it did; and many families are suffering. Not only that, but as a society we now pay the price of caring for those affected. A court case would tease out what went wrong, put a pharmaceutical defendant in the spotlight and could prevent similar tragedies in future.

I agree that it is right to continue to fund the case, but the decision tO stop funding is not part of the proposed LA cuts. It is part I think of general LSC penny pinching that I am seeing alot of.
It's not too late to stop these cuts. We are in a consultation period. The more people make their views known to the M of Justice the better.
Many people post on this board who need legal advice. Only so much advice can be given on this board. What the government proposes is that some people should never get legal advice just because they can't afford it.