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Side effects
Boston Herald
By: Lawrence J. McQuillan, Ph.D
11.5.2008
Boston Herald, November 5, 2008
Los Angeles Times, November 8, 2008
San Francisco Examiner, November 9, 2008
Letter to the Editor
The health of all Americans is at stake as the U.S. Supreme Court weighs the arguments in Wyeth vs. Levine (“U.S. court hears amputee’s case in drug suit,” Nov. 3). If the high court overturns the supremacy - or “pre-emption” - 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 would be forced to divert money from R&D to 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 McQuillan,
Director Business and Economic Studies
Pacific Research Institute San Francisco
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