The right wing majority on the SCOTUS has once again sided with corporations. It seems that’s all they do. No surprise here, just another assault on the middle class and the poor. Citizens United, Walmart and now this.
Who are the people that normally purchase “generic” drugs?
Those who cannot afford the brand name or those who have health insurance policies (including Medicaid and Medicare) that require that a pharmacy ONLY fill the prescription with a generic brand unless there’s no generic available.
Los Angeles Times
Justices rule that generic drug makers cannot be sued by injured patients in most cases and that drug manufacturers have a 1st Amendment right to buy private prescription records to use for marketing purposes.
The Supreme Court gave the pharmaceutical industry a pair of victories, shielding the makers of generic drugs from most lawsuits by injured patients and declaring that drug makers have a free-speech right to buy private prescription records to boost their sales pitches to doctors.
In both decisions Thursday, the court’s conservative bloc formed the majority, and most of its liberals dissented.
About 75% of the prescriptions written in this country are for lower-cost generic versions of brand-name drugs. Federal law requires the makers of brand-name drugs to label their products with FDA-approved warning information and to update the warnings when reports of new problems arise.
But in a 5-4 decision, the high court said this same legal duty to warn patients of newly revealed dangers did not extend to the makers of copy-cat generic drugs.
Justice Clarence Thomas reasoned that the warning labels were the responsibility of the brand-name makers and the Food and Drug Administration. He said that because generics were just copies, their makers could not be sued for inadequate warnings if those warnings didn’t exist on the original.
Related articles
- Supreme Court strikes down Vermont prescription privacy law (dailykos.com)
- Supreme Court Strikes Down Ban on [Prescribing Information] Data-Mining (forum.thenewalchemist.com)
- A Good Day At The Supreme Court – If You’re PHARMA (themoderatevoice.com)
- Two More From The Supreme Court (druganddevicelaw.blogspot.com)
- “Glitch” Could Provide Affordable Health Insurance For Middle Class (lezgetreal.com)
“Vermont’s physicians had sought passage of the law, arguing that their prescriptions were intended for private use of patients and should not become a marketing tool.”
Why the hell Sotomayor greenlighted?
For the other decisions, I guess now we’ll read on generic labels: “May cause some side effects… whatever… who cares…”
For the other decisions, I guess now we’ll read on generic labels: “May cause some side effects… whatever… who cares…”
That about sums it up, jean-philippe.