Drug makers and lawsuits

Re “Memos shed light on drug lawsuit dispute,” Oct. 30, and “High court looks split on suits against drug makers,” Nov. 4

Your article provides support for why injured consumers must be allowed to bring lawsuits against drug companies that market unsafe drugs. The documents described in the article show top career FDA officials internally expressing strong concern about the agency’s rules immunizing drug companies from liability. This is an unprecedented policy advocated by the current White House, and the U.S. Supreme Court is now considering its legitimacy.

As the FDA officials noted, the agency cannot be solely relied on to make certain every drug that enters the marketplace is safe.

Liability is needed not only to ensure corporate accountability but also to make sure that the sick and injured are compensated. If the administration is successful in delivering its “get out of jail free card” to negligent drug companies, the temptation for them to cut corners to maximize profits will inevitably increase.

Andy Hoffman

New York

The writer is an attorney and policy analyst at the Center for Justice & Democracy.

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The health of all Americans is at stake as the Supreme Court weighs the arguments in Wyeth vs. Levine. If the high court overturns the supremacy of federal laws over state ones, personal-injury lawyers will unleash a torrent of frivolous lawsuits, to the detriment of public health.

Patients would see the price of life-saving medicines rise as the availability of medicines dwindled. Those hoping for new cures would be left in the lurch as companies will be forced to divert money away from research and development toward legal costs.

A verdict against Wyeth would also make local judges and juries the de facto drug regulators in this country, rather than scientific experts at the FDA. Instead of one set of drug-safety regulations, we’d eventually have 50 conflicting standards, one for each state. Such a fractured regulatory apparatus would harm development of new drugs and hurt all Americans.

Lawrence J. McQuillan

Sacramento

The writer is director of business and economic studies at the Pacific Research Institute.