AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges) President and CEO David J. Skorton, MD, issued the following statement on the decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine :
“The AAMC is encouraged by today’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, in which the court reversed a 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that would have limited access to the drug mifepristone. The court held that the plaintiffs who challenged the FDA did not have standing to contest the agency’s regulatory action.
In an amicus brief to the court, the AAMC had expressed grave concerns about the negative impact on the clinical delivery and research missions of academic medicine that would have been realized if the lower court ruling was allowed to stand, asserting that ‘permitting an individual court or judge to substitute his or her opinions for the FDA’s expert judgment threatens to upset this established, and highly successful, science-driven process and undermines the very authority Congress granted to the FDA. [The result] would undercut more than eight decades of progress since the passage of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, imperiling innovative, life- saving research and product development and threatening patient care.’ We are relieved that today’s outcome preserves the FDA’s evidence-based decision on this drug’s well-established safety and efficacy.”