The Times has a scary article on how Johnson and Johnson is trying to gain legal protection from lawsuits on drugs approved by the FDA. Never mind the fact that pharmaceutical companies have been shown time and time again to have omitted key finding from studies, or simply not published critical studies at all. Also never mind the fact that the FDA is underfunded and understaffed.
Essentially, what Johnson and Johnson is trying to do is stop all lawsuits stemming from the use of any drug approved by the FDA. The underlying argument is that courts couldn’t possibly make better decisions about drug safety than the FDA already does.
This is of course, ridiculous. Link Link Link.
Hopefully SCOTUS will recognize the ineptitude of the Bush FDA or it won’t be too long before it’s considering whether or not the FDA can be sued for not doing its job.