A recent academic paper may be worth a look. Noah, Lars, “Platitudes about ‘Product Stewardship’ in Torts: Continuing Drug Research and Education,” 15 Michigan Telecommunications and Technology Law Review 2009.

This paper focuses on one emerging aspect of tort litigation against pharmaceutical manufacturers that, if it gained traction, might portend a dramatic (and potentially counterproductive, in the author’s view) expansion in the prescription drug industry’s exposure to liability. A growing number of liberal commentators would seek to impose on pharmaceutical manufacturers a broader duty to test and educate (aspects of what they call an obligation of “product stewardship”). This paper explains some of  the serious flaws in such proposals.

The article is thus part of the overall debate about what role tort law may have to play in drug research and development. Does the threat of liability create important safety incentives (and make up for perceived, alleged failings in regulatory oversight), or, instead, does it unduly interfere with innovation and patient access to life-saving therapies? These and related questions have
inspired an active debate among commentators, the author notes;  courts and legislators have also made occasional forays into the area by constricting the scope of potential tort liability in particular circumstances. The Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products Liability, which ALI published a decade ago, included special provisions governing prescription drug cases, and the pitched battle over using implied preemption as a defense, which the United States Supreme Court may address in 2009, represents only the latest manifestation of these sharp disagreements.

Worth a read.