Pharmacists are not cashiers

I said on Twitter that we should not pretend the federal government's lawsuit against Wal-Mart has anything to do with actually holding a "bad" corporation accountable. It is all about going after the deep pockets - pure greed.

I stand by that.

However, this argument by Wal-Mart is a bad faith argument. Wal-Mart insists the lawsuit:

invents a legal theory that unlawfully forces pharmacists to come between patients and their doctors.

It is a pharmacist's job to "come between patients and their doctors" - checking for harmful drug interactions and so forth. A pharmacist is not a cashier. He or she is a medical professional who has the task of protecting a patient's health.

That statement is a public-relations statement, not a legitimate legal argument. It is divorced from the reality of what a pharmacist is supposed to do.