DOJ asks 5th Circuit to halt abortion pill ban ruling
The Justice Department on Monday asked the 5th U.S. Court of Appeals to halt Friday’s ruling by a Texas judge that will suspend the nationwide sale and distribution of the abortion medication mifepristone.
The move follows Attorney General Merrick Garland’s statement on Friday in which he said the department “strongly disagrees with the decision of the District Court for the Northern District of Texas in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v.
FDAand will be appealing the court’s decision and seeking a stay pending appeal.” Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s ruling “overturns the FDA’s expert judgment, rendered over two decades ago, that mifepristone is safe and effective,” Garland said, adding the department “will continue to defend the FDA’s decision.” The White House on Monday circulated an open industry letter signed by more than 200 pharmaceutical company executives that objects to the issuance of a mifepristone ban by “a federal judge with no scientific training” who had “fundamentally undermined the bipartisan authority granted by Congress to the Food and Drug Administration to approve and regulate safe, effective medicines for every American.” The letter explains the harms and risks to the biopharmaceutical industry that will stem from Kacsmaryk’s ruling and the precedent it may set: “As an industry we count on the FDA’s autonomy and authority to bring new medicines to patients under a reliable regulatory process for drug evaluation and approval.
Adding regulatory uncertainty to the already inherently risky work of discovering and developing new medicines will likely have the effect of reducing incentives for investment, endangering the innovation that characterizes our industry.” The post DOJ asks 5th Circuit to halt
