$1,000,000,000

Well, the trial is over and I guess I'm glad I was an alternate. As an alternate I was allowed to spend six weeks in the Malibu courthouse but I wasn't allowed to vote or to sit in on the final deliberations by the jury. While I don't agree with the jury's final decision, I do understand that their jury instructions made it difficult to find differently. But I also wonder, deep in my heart and in spite of what people say to the contrary, if the plaintiff's attorneys didn't maybe turn a few stomachs when they threw out the number $1,000,000,000. One billion. It doesn't taste right, does it?

The decision will be appealed and I suspect Johnson & Johnson/McNeil Pharmaceuticals will settle some enormous sum (but not a billion) on the plaintiffs and that will be it...for a while anyway. There is bound to be another, equally heinous adverse reaction to ibuprofen.