Diana Levine got a badly administered injection of a long-legal drug approved by the FDA. She sued not the nurse, but the drugmaker, and the Supreme Court upheld her victory in a lawsuit. Michael Kinsley criticized the decision and so agreed with Antonin Scalia while Clarence Thomas joined Steven Breyer in the majority.
For many the debate in this lawsuit was over the federal government’s ability to preempt state law. The ruling, like the Vioxx/Celebrex withdrawals in 2004, again challenges the wisdom of having an FDA in the first place.
