John Edwards 'Increased the Cost of Medicine', Former Associate Says
By Marc Morano
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
February 10, 2004
(CNSNews.com) - A former North Carolina obstetrician who served as an expert witness and consultant to Sen. John Edwards during his days as a trial lawyer, now accuses the Democratic presidential candidate of increasing the cost of medicine and forcing doctors into retirement in the senator's home state.
"What he has done with those lawsuits is increased the cost of medicine, and he has not changed the practice of medicine in a way that you can see that there are fewer cases of cerebral palsy," William Brannan said in an interview with CNSNews.com.
As CNSNews.com first reported on Jan. 20, Edwards won record jury verdicts and settlements by arguing that in certain cases, obstetricians and the hospitals where they practiced had been responsible for botching the treatment of women in labor and the delivery of their babies.
It was that botched treatment, Edwards argued, that resulted in the infants sustaining either brain damage or developing cerebral palsy, a brain disorder that causes motor function impairment and lifelong disability.
Brannan, the chief medical officer of Mission Hospitals in Asheville, N.C., said he was forced to end his obstetrics medical practice this year because of skyrocketing medical insurance premiums. Brannan said he consulted for Edwards in an attempt to "bring only the valid cases into the legal system."
Edwards' campaign metaphors about standing up for the poor and underprivileged in the battle between the "two Americas" does not resonate with Brannan.
"I have some argument with [Edwards's] idea that he's out there to help the poor person and that he's out there helping all. No, he was very selective in his cases, and went for those that were going to go for large judgments," Brannan said.
"He was not an individual that would go out and help the poor person who needed help in a low-dollar amount. If you look at his cases, they were all high-dollar amounts and he didn't work for low-dollar settlements," he added.
Brannan's role as a consultant and sometimes expert witness for Edwards and his legal firm allowed him to see Edwards's career up close.
"He was an expert at getting [cerebral palsy cases] settled without going into the courtroom," Brannan said.
Brannan is very skeptical of Edwards' and other trial lawyers' accomplishments in seeking to blame infant cerebral palsy cases on botched labor and deliveries.
"I don't think that there is a correlation between bad medical practice and the incidence of cerebral palsy," Brannan said.
"Studies that we have done have found no changes in the incidences of cerebral palsy occurring either with increased vigilance...or the increase in C-section rates that have occurred," he said.
Despite the scientific evidence, Brannan is not optimistic that medical malpractice cerebral palsy cases will fade from the courtroom anytime soon.
"Most juries have a live person in the room that they feel sympathy for, and it's very hard to make the cold statistics of a scientific study cancel out the sympathy that they feel," Brannan said.
"So most of juries, knowing that there are insurance policies behind all of these [cases], will then want this family to have something to be able to provide care for the child," he added.
Edwards defends legal career
Edwards has conceded that infant cerebral palsy usually is not the fault of the doctors who deliver the baby -- even though he argued otherwise in his days as a trial lawyer.
According to an article in the New York Times on January 31, "...Mr. Edwards did not dispute the contention...that few cases of cerebral palsy are caused by mishandled deliveries." Edwards did say that during his legal career, he represented only the few cases that were the exceptions to the rule.
Edwards was responding to allegations first reported by CNSNews.com on Jan. 20. The CNSNews.com report noted that a large part of Edwards' legal career was based on "junk science," which he used to win hugely lucrative legal judgments or settlements against the medical profession.
The outcome of those cases, many of them dealing with the debatable cause of cerebral palsy in infants, made Edwards a rich man, allowing him to self-finance a 1998 run for the U.S. Senate from North Carolina and position himself as a presidential candidate in 2004.
The CNSNews.com report pointed to medical studies, dating back to at least the 1980s, which asserted that doctors could do very little to cause cerebral palsy during the birthing process. Two new studies in 2003 further undermined the scientific premise of the high-profile court cases won by Edwards.
Edwards now insists that the cerebral cases he represented were the exceptions.
"I took very seriously our responsibility to determine if our cases were merited," Edwards told the New York Times in the January 30 interview, just days after refusing to answer CNSNews.com's questions on the same topic.
"Before I ever accepted a brain-injured child case, we would spend months investigating it," Edwards added.
The Times article noted that between 1985 and 1995, "Edwards filed at least 20 similar lawsuits against doctors and hospitals in deliveries gone wrong, winning verdicts and settlements of more than $60 million, typically keeping about a third."
'Crisis'
Brannan believes that Edwards did his part to contribute to the American Medical Association's listing of North Carolina as one of the "crisis states" for rising liability insurance.
Many physicians in the state are opting to quit their practices because they cannot afford the insurance premiums, according to Brannan.
The hospital that Brannan now serves as the chief medical officer also has been the target of Edwards and his law firm.
"Our hospital (Mission Hospitals, formerly St Joseph's) had two major suits brought by [Edwards's] law firm -- one of which he was able to prevail and got a judgment, and another one his firm lost," Brannan noted.
Brannan said he personally was forced to stop his obstetrics practice when his insurance premiums shot up.
"My premium two years ago was $44,000 a year, and my insurance carrier notified me that if I wished to continue practicing, it was going up to $68,000 for this year," Brannan said.
"I chose to discontinue my Ob privileges, because I would have to deliver 68 babies just to pay the premium before being able to pay any office expenses." He also said that his premiums were lower than those of many other doctors because of his affiliation with a hospital.
The small practitioners are hit the hardest by rising insurance, Brannan said.
"Liability premiums are the same whether you deliver one baby a year or 300 babies a year," he explained.
"The town of Franklin, North Carolina, lost their sole Ob/Gyn practitioner, so now the women in that town are having to travel over a mountain pass to a neighboring city in order to get obstetrical care," Brannan said.
I've never seen a campaign and it's supporters get so negative so quickly....But no, they ain't a skeered 
