FDA Preemption of State Pharmaceutical Suits

Very interesting article in the ABA Journal — The Pre-emption Prescription, by Terry Carter.  The FDA has been increasingly moving to pre-empt state suits based on its approval of pharmaceutical labeling.  I’m troubled at the prospect of a large, unwieldy regulatory agency trying to assess reasonable care in warning when information on safety changes all the time, one can’t even assume that the FDA has all the pertinent information when it decides, and the FDA’s assessment of that information may not be correct.  On the flip side, defendants shouldn’t be held liable for adhering to any label they are forbidden to change by the FDA.  While the prospect of regulation through juries is sometimes pilloried, one wonders whether individual litigation with well-credentialed expert witnesses and negligence standards incorporating arguments from custom wouldn’t be more nimble in adapting legal standards to changing safety information and more effective at incentivizing adequate safety in warning.  One could argue that juries may result in inconsistent decisions, but in a mass tort involving numerous cases and trials, wouldn’t one prefer the verdict pattern that emerges (and the deterrence benefits of anticipating such jury accountability) to the rigidity, slowness, and possible regulatory capture affecting the FDA?  I’ll take traditional contract and tort  law over FDA attempts at micro-management in both approval and liability.

BGS