A single federal judge, with apparently no substantive background in science or medicine, appears poised to overrule decades of safety determinations made by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and ban a medicine from use nationwide. Such a decision would be unprecedented, significantly worsening the legitimacy crisis facing the judiciary by signaling to communities across the country that — in America’s courts, at least — drug safety comes second to a judge’s personal politics.
Leading medical groups, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, as well as American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, all strongly disagree that the drug should be banned and affirm its safety. FDA experts have written to the court, explaining a judge should not even be able to ban a medicine outright because of the FDA’s statutory powers that establish both its independence and guardrails for patient access.
The above excerpt was originally published in The Hill.
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