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Wyeth v. Levine: Challenging Implied Pre-emption for drugs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Pooja Nair
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Extract

In March 2009, the Supreme Court held in Wyeth v. Levine that federal drug labeling laws do not pre-empt state tort claims against drug manufacturers. The decision surprised many Court watchers, coming on the heels of a 2008 decision, Riegel v. Medtronic, in which the Court found that the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) does pre-empt state-law claims for injuries caused by medical devices that received premarket approval from the Food and Drug Administration. Wyeth dealt an immediate and surprising blow to the pharmaceutical industry’s principal strategy for avoiding tort lawsuits, but failed to clarify the Court’s overall pre-emption jurisprudence.

Type
Recent Developments in Health Law
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , Fall 2009 , pp. 527 - 530
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2009

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