Proposed Michigan legislation aims to protect consumers from the drug industry

• -- State House Democrats want to allow residents hurt by a prescription medication to be able to sue drug makers for damages, something severely limited in Michigan.
• Democrats are expected to announce Monday a three-bill package of legislation that would repeal the state's 1996 law that shields drug makers from liability if their product was approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
• The legislation is retroactive, which would allow residents harmed by an FDA-approved drug since the old law took effect to file a lawsuit.
• House Democrats said their bills are needed because of recent problems with drugs such as painkillers Vioxx and Bextra.
• Both drugs were pulled from the market after receiving FDA approval because of the possibility of serious and fatal side effects.
• The Michigan Trial Lawyers Association has said Michigan is the only state in the country to strictly limit lawsuits against producers of FDA-approved drugs.
• Such lawsuits only will stand up in a state court if they prove a company withheld or misrepresented information about a drug that would cause the FDA to not give or withdraw its approval.
• A spokesman for Republican House Speaker Craig DeRoche of Novi said the House GOP only will support legislation that protects the health of patients and medical industry jobs.
• The 1996 law was intended to safeguard the Upjohn Co., a Kalamazoo-based pharmaceutical that later folded into Pfizer Inc. Pfizer employs thousands of workers in Michigan.
• Attention focused again on the possible harmful side effects of some painkillers last week when Pfizer Inc. suspended sales of painkiller Bextra in the United States and the European Union.
• Former Vioxx users Dr. David Cox of Grosse Pointe Woods and John Matznick of Owosso are among 13 people who filed lawsuits against the drug maker in New Jersey, the location of Merck's corporate headquarters, to seek damages for their physical ailments they attribute to Vioxx.