Catfish and lawyers   (December 26, 2007)

As a physician, I've got a whole collection of jokes about other occupations - and one of my favorite occupations is attorneys; for example, there's the old one asking

"What's the difference between a catfish and a lawyer? - One's a low life bottom feeding scumsucker; the other's a fish."

Well, I recently found a comment made at a diabetes blog which reminded me of this truism; somebody posted a comment about a diabetes drug as follows:

"I have been following this discussion for some time since my mother took [medication name deleted], and I have been doing a lot of research about this. Did any of you see this news story about how the FDA came within one vote of issuing a [medication name deleted] recall?

"What does it take for them to recall a drug????? There is no way they would approve it today if it were a new drug so why do they continue to let people die from this. This is crazy!"

Why am I concerned about what appears to be simply another misinformed slam at the FDA? Well, what I didn't do in reproducing this comment is to indicate that there was a live link to a website embedded in the comment, and that the website it linked to is for a law firm that proudly announces that they are a personal injury law firm dedicated to the sole purpose of representing those seriously injured as a result of another person or corporation's negligence. (And also dedicated to making money, by the way.)

My conclusion? If you read something that sounds bizarre on the Web, don't assume it was written by teenagers with too much time on their hands. It may have been written by a low life bottom feeding scumsucker.