WASHINGTON--The Washington Legal Foundation (WLF), a public interest group, has claimed that the FDA violated the First Amendment rights of physicians by denying them access to information about the off-label use of certain oncologic drugs.
WLF's suit arises from an action taken by the FDA that prevented Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.from giving physicians complimentary copies of The Chemotherapy Sourcebook, edited by Michael Perry, and chapters from Cancer: Principles and Practice of Oncology, by Vincent DeVita, Samuel Hellman, and Steven Rosenberg.
Federal Judge Royce Lamberth denied the FDA's motion to dismiss the suit, thus clearing the way for a trial, which will be the first constitutional test of the agency's criteria to discourage what it views as improper promotion of drugs by means of distribution of legitimate medical educational material.
