CMA Files Brief with U.S. Supreme Court in Case that Could Increase Physician Liability for Prescription Drug-Related Injuries
[Posted 09/02/08]

CMA has filed a brief with the United State Supreme Court in Wyeth vs. Levine. Pharmaceutical manufacturer Wyeth is appealing a decision by the Vermont Supreme Court to uphold a jury award to Diana Levine after her use of Wyeth’s anti-nausea drug Phenergan caused serious complications and ultimately resulted in the amputation of her arm. The issue on appeal focuses on whether FDA approval of a drug should preempt state legal actions against the pharmaceutical company for failure to warn of known risks. 

CMA in its brief told the justices that preemption of pharmaceutical failure-to-warn claims would obstruct physicians’ access to complete and truthful information about prescription drug safety and efficacy and would compromise patient safety. “Because preempting failure-to-warn claims would make FDA approval the final word on a drug’s safety, it would significantly weaken manufacturers’ incentives to conduct new safety studies, to monitor their drugs in the marketplace, to improve them post approval, and to supply FDA and doctors with new or revised safety information,” wrote CMA legal counsel in the brief. “Preemption would then leave these patients without recourse for injuries and put physicians at risk by potentially allowing drug manufacturers to shift liability for such injuries to doctors…This potential for new liability would undermine longstanding efforts to protect doctors from suit and could well drive some physicians from the profession.”

The Texas Medical Association and North Carolina Medical Society have also filed a joint brief opposing federal preemption of failure-to-warn cases against pharmaceutical companies. 

Contact: Samantha Pellon, 916/551-2872 or spellon@cmanet.org