The Supreme Court's blockbuster case over access to abortion drug mifepristone could upend the way the Food and Drug Administration broadly regulates medicines and other products.
Why it matters: Courts for years have given the FDA latitude to make judgments about health and safety based on scientific studies, but a challenge the justices hear Tuesday could set a precedent for courts to substitute their own conclusions for agency decisions.
- Some legal experts believe if the Supreme Court agrees with an appeals court decision reversing FDA's expansion of mifepristone access, outside groups will seek out sympathetic judges to target contraception, certain vaccines or hormone therapies used in gender-affirming care.
- If the appeals court's mifepristone decision stands, it "will invite a flood of meritless challenges to the FDA's drug safety and efficacy decisions, including those brought by parties with no concrete interest at stake," drugmakers, executives and investors wrote in a brief to the court.
- The hearing also comes as the Supreme Court weighs another case about a decades-old legal doctrine known as the "Chevron deference" that could significantly limit how much leeway the FDA and other federal agencies have to interpret vaguely worded laws.
