Professor Richard Nagareda, who’s developed quite a name for himself as a complex litigation scholar, just put out an article for the inaugural issue of a new publication, the Journal of Tort Law. The article, FDA Preemption: When Tort Law Meets the Administrative State, analyzes FDA preemption generally, but it focuses in particular on litigation asserting that there is a causal link between ingesting certain antidepressants and developing suicidal thinking or behavior. We’d love to describe the article in a little more detail; in fact, we’d love to say whether we agree or disagree with some or all of Nagareda’s ideas. But we’re keenly aware that the words we post in this blog could (inappropriately) be cited against us or our colleagues some day, and so we are necessarily terribly guarded when we speak on topics that come close to home.
Here’s a link to the Berkeley Electronic Press abstract of the article. If you register there, you can download the entire article. If you have a reaction to the article, please post your thought as a “comment” below, and our on-line community can discuss Nagareda’s thesis. Your on-line co-hosts may be constrained from participating too actively in the discussion, but we can at least follow along with interest, can’t we?