| John Edwards to Blame for Flu Vaccine Shortage (Paul Harvey Variant) | |||
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| Netlore Archive: Variant of email flier purportedly written by Paul Harvey blames 2004 shortage of flu vaccine on 'frivolous litigation' by vice-presidential candidate and former trial lawyer John Edwards | |||
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Email example contributed by an AOL user, 27 October 2004:
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Subject: FW: Paul Harvey: Why there's no flu vaccine. The major pharmaceutical companies in the US provided almost 90% of the nations flu vaccine at one time. They did this despite a very low profit margin for the product. Basically, they were doing us a favor. In the late 80's a man from North Carolina who had received the vaccine got the flu. The strain he caught was one of the strains in that years vaccine made by a US company. What did he do? He sued and he won. He was awarded almost $5 million! After that case was appealed and lost, most US pharmaceutical companies stopped making the vaccine. The liability out weighed the profit margin. Since UK and Canadian laws prohibit such frivolous law suits UK and Canadian companies began selling the vaccine in the US. By the way...the lawyer that represented the man in the flu shot law suit was a young ambulance chaser by the name of John Edwards. .......and now you know the rest of the story. |
Comments: Paul Harvey did not write the above, nor did he deliver the text on his radio program. Harvey's name and signature catch-phrase, "And now you know the rest of the story," were appended to an already-circulating email hoax approximately one week after the latter first appeared.
More commentary:
Is John Edwards to Blame for Flu Vaccine Shortage?
Earlier variant of the same message, with analysis and resource links
Last updated: 10/27/04
