Wyeth v Levine -- A great victory for a severely injured woman

On March 4, 2009, the United States Supreme Court issued its opinion in a case involving a woman who was severely injured by an antinausea drug called Phenergan, manufactured by Wyeth. After a clinician injected Ms. Levine with the drug by the IV push method, she developed gangrene and doctors amputated her forearm. The Vermont jury determined that Ms. Levine's injury would not have occurred if Phenergan's label included an adequate warning. Anyone who's interested in reading the opinion can click here, or simply be happy that the Supreme Court rejected Wyeth's argument that Ms. Levine could not recover from them for her injuries because federal law precluded her recovery under state law. The score was 6 to 3.

New Link To European Commission Safety News

I've added a link to the safety news page of Europa's web site. In paging through the site, I think it's interesting to note that the perspectives of the Europeans and Americans concerning consumer safety are quite different. The EU apparently assesses the inherent toxicity of a substance and based on an accumulation of evidence determine that its potential to cause harm is enough to remove it from the market. In contrast, American regulatory authorities seem to wait for conclusive scientific evidence of toxic exposure before acting.