Jump to full article: Bloomberg News, 2009-03-05
Author: Greg Stohr
Intro: The U.S. Supreme Court said patients can sue drugmakers for failing to provide adequate safety warnings, upholding a $7 million award to a musician who lost her arm after being injected with Wyeth’s Phenergan nausea treatment.
The justices, voting 6-3, said pharmaceutical companies aren’t shielded from suit by the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a treatment and its packaging information.
“Congress did not intend FDA oversight to be the exclusive means of ensuring drug safety and effectiveness,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the court.
Injured patients and their families are pressing thousands of suits around the country, seeking billions of dollars in damages from drug companies. Today’s decision might help former users of Wyeth’s Prempro and Premarin menopause drugs and consumers of AstraZeneca Plc’s antipsychotic drug Seroquel.
The impact isn’t clear for allegations that Pfizer Inc. and GlaxoSmithKline Plc should have done more to warn that their anti-depressants might cause suicidal tendencies. . . .
The decision marks the second time during its current term that the high court has said federal law doesn’t preempt consumer lawsuits. The justices in December said smokers can sue tobacco companies over the marketing of “light” cigarettes. . . .
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito dissented.
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