News & Commentary on Prescription Drug & Medical Device Lawsuits
What is federal preemption? It’s an easier concept to grasp than you might think.
Think back to when you were a kid, and you asked your mom if you could go to a party. She clearly said, “no.” You then went to ask your dad if you could go to the party, and he…
Dear Ms. Weiner,
We are grateful for the opportunity to submit comments in support of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) proposed rule entitled, Supplemental Applications Proposing Labeling Changes…
We are pleased with a recent order issued by a Federal District Judge in Illinois, which found that, under Illinois law, a brand-name manufacturer owes a duty to consumers of generic versions of its drugs.
The plaintiff in the case is a woman whose husband committed suicide after taking a medication called, paroxetine, which is…
Generic brands. Knock-offs. It’s probably safe to assume that all of us have used one at some point or another. Many of us use them on a regular basis. Why? Because, usually, a generic brand product is pretty much the same thing as its brand-name equivalent. The main (and sometimes, only) difference is price. Generic…
Longtime readers of this (or any drug-related blog) know that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that manufacturers of generic drugs cannot be sued for failure-to-warn claims. The ruling created a legal injustice for those injured by generic drugs.
While every plaintiff’s lawyer has secretly hoped that Congress would fix the law, we’re all savvy enough…
A little late, but better than never. Especially since the Solicitor General agrees that failure to warn lawsuits against generic manufacturers are not preempted by the FDCA:
The court of appeals correctly rejected petitioners’ contention that respondent’s failure-to-warn claims are categorically preempted by the FDCA, and its decision is consistent with the decision of the
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Bruesewitz v. Wyeth looks like it will be the Wyeth v. Levine of vaccine lawsuits:
Erwin Chemerinsky, a liberal scholar, and Kenneth Starr, a conservative, may appear to be the Oscar and Felix of constitutional law, but they’re also friends and, perhaps surprisingly, share essentially the same view in one, increasingly hard-fought area of constitutional
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It came a little late for Diana Levine, but at least it finally came.
TRENTON, N.J. — Makers of injected promethazine, a sedative also used to treat nausea and vomiting, are being required to put the strongest warning possible on the product because it can cause tissue damage leading to amputation, the Food and Drug
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In 1779, the English doctor William Withering discovered that the Foxglove plant could be used to treat congestive heart failure, and in 1785 he published An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses. Foxglove is the common name for the roughly twenty plants in the Digitalis…
The crux of the argument that FDA approval of a drug should preempt state lawsuits over that drug is that it should be experts at the FDA who decide whether a drug is safe and what warnings that drug’s label should carry. Implicit in this argument are the assumptions that the FDA has access to…