FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Doctors for America
PO Box: 21161
2300 18th St NW Lbby
Washington, DC 20009-9996
October 28, 2024
Doctors for America Files Amicus Brief to Protect North Carolina Patients’ Access to Mifepristone
Washington, D.C.: Doctors for America (DFA) has filed an amicus brief urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to reject North Carolina’s attempt to impose onerous and unnecessary restrictions on the FDA-approved abortion medication mifepristone.
Doctors for America urges the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to put patients over politics and fully affirm FDA’s clearly established preemption authority. While Doctors for America agrees with part of the district court’s ruling that some of North Carolina’s restrictions to accessing mifepristone are preempted by the federal FDA regulatory review process, the organization disagrees with the district court’s assessment that the state’s additional unscientific restrictions to mifepristone including in-person consultation and examination requirements and further laboratory testing, are not preempted by FDA’s federal authority.
The amicus brief filed in the case of Bryant v. Moore presents legal arguments why North Carolina’s state laws limiting access to mifepristone are in direct violation with the U.S. Supremacy Clause, which requires federal law to take precedence over conflicting state laws. Simply put, Congress has given FDA the authority to decide the who, what, where, when, and how of prescribing, administering, and dispensing of certain drugs, including mifepristone. Exercising that authority, FDA has considered and rejected the “safeguards” North Carolina is attempting to impose. Doctors from across the country will be watching this case closely.
“The practice of using the judicial system to circumvent FDA’s scientific expertise and authority on drug regulation is dangerous and could have widespread consequences,” said DFA’s FDA Task Force Chair, Dr. Reshma Ramachandran, “If allowed to stand, North Carolina’s medically unnecessary restrictions on mifepristone offers other states a playbook for how to effectively obstruct FDA’s expert judgment regarding the availability of medications based on feelings rather than facts.”
In the brief, Dr. Aliye Runyan, a practicing obstetrician-gynecologist and DFA member states, “these additional restrictions on access to mifepristone are in place for political reasons, not medical ones,” and that as a result, the “practice of medicine is being unethically limited by restrictive laws.”
The brief was filed by Goodwin Procter LLP and Columbia Law School’s Science, Health & Information Clinic (SHIC), which provide pro bono legal help to DFA.
“DFA’s work in these cases is in large part about protecting the regulatory power of the FDA in the face of state governments that want to second guess and override the FDA’s decisions,” said SHIC student attorney, Nora M. Franco. SHIC Director, Christopher J. Morten added, “many elements of our health care system that rely on national uniformity – from prescribing guidelines and standards of care to telemedicine to medical education – are threatened by state laws that override the FDA’s expert decision-making. Patients will suffer if the Fourth Circuit allows North Carolina’s law to stand.”
To read the full brief filed in the case of Bryant v. Moore click here.
For press inquiries for members of the FDA Task Force Doctors for America please contact Claire Onyechi with Continuum Health Group ([email protected]).
About Doctors for America:
Doctors for America mobilizes doctors and medical students to be leaders in putting patients over politics to improve the health of our patients, communities, and nation. We are 27,000 physicians and medical students in all 50 states, representing all areas of specialization. Our impact areas focus on access to affordable care, community health and prevention, and health justice and equity. DFA focuses solely on what is best for our patients, not on the business side of medicine, and does not accept any funding from pharmaceutical or medical device companies; which uniquely positions DFA as the organization that puts patients over politics and patients over profits. Find out more at doctorsforamerica.org and on Twitter @drsforamerica.
###