The Giant Killer by Robert Olson

If you walk down any street in America and look at a woman in her mid-50s, 60s, 70s, and maybe even 80s or 90s, would you be able to guess that they may have been living with an essentially ticking time bomb inside of them? Would you be able to tell if they’d been implanted with an item that doctors and pharmaceutical professionals deemed safe for use but did little to nothing about when it was proven to be a health hazard? Would you be able to face the family of a woman who died because of that medical device? Would you be able to look into the eyes of the families of the hundreds of women known who died and tell them it was their loved one’s fault? That’s exactly what starting happening in the 1980s when the manufacturer of the Dalkon Shield was sued for the first of what would become thousands of times.

For those born later than the 1980s, here’s a brief recap so you’ll understand the contents of this book as well as the impact average and not-so-average people can have on the manufacture and sale of medical implants. The Dalkon Shield was an IUD (intra-uterine device) implanted as what was considered a “sure-fired, guaranteed form of contraception.” Like nearly every other untested medical item to hit the market, it malfunctioned in well over 100,000 women, with more than 12,000 women filing suits against the manufacturer for complications ranging from debilitating pain to septic abortions, catastrophic birth defects as result of unwanted pregnancy, pelvic inflammatory disease, and in some cases, death. Turns out, the device itself was fine. The problem was the string that held it in place allowed bacteria to access the reproductive system and spread infections that for the most part went untreated and brushed off by doctors as “menstrual cramps”, “strenuous sexual activity”, and according to the lawyers representing the manufacturer, “promiscuity” was at fault. Anyone or anything other than their client was legally, ethically, or morally responsible.

You may have noticed that this book has been written by a man and you may be thinking that this real-life horror story is being told from a male perspective and as such, it couldn’t possibly be told as fact. Guess again, because this is the truth, the whole truth, and it’s being told by one of five defendants put on trial for Federal Mail Fraud because he was the chief investigator for the law firm that initiated the search for victims in the age before the internet and infomercials. The work performed by those five defendants paved the way for what would be one of the largest class action suits in pharmaceutical manufacturing history.

My name is Robert Olson. I’m also referred to as “The Giant Killer” and by the time you’ve finished reading, you’ll know how a group of people brought a manufacturer to its knees and gave justice to thousands of women who should never have been subjected to the literal and figurative torture they suffered at the expense of a corporation whose only concern was making the almighty dollar no matter what the consequence to human life.

The Giant Killer is a work in progress.