Knowledge Is Power In Failure-To-Warn Claims

Before Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel, cartoons were reserved for Saturday mornings. And, if you were a pre-teen boy in the mid-1980s — or are now married to someone who was — you are probably familiar with the G.I. Joe cartoon series.

If so, you also probably know that each episode ended with a public service announcement (PSA) in which Joe quipped: “Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.”

From that same generation, and still enjoyed by kids today, is Schoolhouse Rock’s “Knowledge is Power.” Or, while not cartoon-based but just to get a little more current, there is NBC’s series of PSA’s entitled “The More You Know.”

All of these are certainly true in the case of a pharmaceutical failure-to-warn claim — the prescriber’s knowledge is crucial, and if the prescriber knew about the risks, there is no failure to warn.