Raptiva, Reglan, Hydroxycut, Heparin and Floppy Hats

June 22nd, 2009. By AbiK

Ok folks. Let’s play a little “One of these things is not like the other; one of these things just doesn’t belong…” Sing along with me if you’d like. Or not. Either way, I’m betting the farm that you’re going to pick (drum roll please) Floppy Hats as your answer.

Raptiva, Reglan, Hydroxycut and Heparin are all drugs (one’s a supplement) that have either been directly linked to adverse (and dangerous) side effects and have been yanked or recalled from shelves by the FDA—or have received a more stringent black box warning in recent months. Each is a current legal issue with lawsuits pending.

Floppy Hats? That would be a suit, too, brought forth by Alfred G. Rava—a California lawyer. Seems he felt pretty injured (my words) when he didn’t receive a floppy hat as a giveaway at an Oakland A’s game in 2004. See, according to a great post by Rick Reilly over at ESPN.com (6/12/09),

…the Oakland A’s had a Mother’s Day promotion. There was a fight-breast-cancer 5K run before the game, free mammograms and the first 7,500 women through the gate got floppy plaid sun hats from Macy’s.

But Alfred G. Rava didn’t get one. And he wanted one. It didn’t matter that the gameday’s promotion was all about breast cancer—a disease largely affecting…women. He’s a man and he felt sexually discriminated against when he was at the game early enough to ensure plenty of those floppy hat giveaways would be on hand, but alas he couldn’t don one.

Here’s the kicker: according to the Reilly story,

A judge has given preliminary approval to a $510,000 settlement—roughly half to lawyers and the rest to the “victims”—the poor, downtrodden gender-disadvantaged waifs like Rava who didn’t get their floppy Mother’s Day hats. This is where you come in. 

If you can prove you were one of the first 7,500 people there that day, you get $50 in cash, two-for-one A’s tickets and a $25 Macy’s coupon. It won’t be hard. All you have to do is (A) state under oath that you are a male, (B) show some kind of receipt for your ticket and (C) swear you were there early. That’s good enough. There’s no video, and nobody’s going to spend $5,000 deposing you about $100.

In the face of real injury and real lives that have been forever affected by medications or supplements that were supposed to improve one’s quality of life—these kind of lawsuits are complete you-know-what. They just don’t belong in the legal system. In the future, rather than suing, I have a suggestion for Mr. Rava: go in drag. Guaranteed you’ll get the hat. And that way you’ll be coordinated quite nicely—head to toe!—as you sit in the stands.

Tags: Alfred Rava, Heparin, Hydroxycut, Raptiva, Reglan

This was posted on Monday, June 22nd, 2009 at 8:55 pm and is filed under Defective Products, Drugs/Medical . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.