On behalf of CareToLive I must share with you the news that the United States Supreme Court has denied Cert to our case, which means they have chosen not to review the matter.

Such a ruling does not mean that our arguments were without merit, it merely means the Court has determined that it is not important enough for them to spend their judicial resources on at this particular time.

It is possible we could be before the Supreme Court again in the future for several reasons:

1) None of the merits on the underlying claims made by CareToLive, including the fact that the FDA acted capriciously when they denied approval to Provenge on May 8, 2007 have been decided. Those claims will become ripe when a “final decision” is made on Provenge. The original case was dismissed without prejudice in the lower Court which means we can again file a new complaint.

2) We also currently have pending in the Southern District of Ohio the FOIA Complaint that the FDA received a stay on until May. In May the case will become active again and the Court has already ordered the FDA to produce documents.

Also remember that CareToLive still has a duly filed Citizen Petition pending at the FDA. While Jesse Goodman and Andrew von Eschenbach have chosen to ignore it to date, each new commissioner, whether interim or finally appointed, will have the opportunity to review the petition if and when it comes to their attention (if it has not already). There is new hope with each new commissioner.

Also, a friend of CaretoLive filed an appeal at HHS of the NCI decision to redact portions of the Scher e-mail received in an earlier FOIA request, which we await a decision on.

While we are upset about the loss, because the hope was to speed Provenge to the patients who so badly need it as soon as possible, we are far from being done with the ongoing fight.

While much work is done behind the scenes, please know that not a single day goes by where CareToLive members, supporters and its many friends are not taking action in some manner or another to try to speed Provenge to market so that the patients can benefit by it and the new era of immunotherapy treatments for cancer can be ushered in. This is done by continuing to spread the word among our citizens, lobbying important people in Washington within and outside of Congress, working to gain the interest of and assist media and documentary film makers as well as “educating” the FDA (new and old). The delay of Provenge has needlessly delayed the advance of science and shortened the life of many late stage cancer patients who passed without the hope that Provenge might have brought to them, but their memories live on and with us, as we continue to seek justice and reform at the FDA.

We also extend a very special thanks to those at the Abigail Alliance, Accelerate Progress, PHEN, Cancer Cure Coalition and other advocacy groups that are constantly working for the cause and share similar goals to ours.

We are not alone in this fight and continue to ask everyone reading this to continue to spread the word of Provenge. If a weekend arrives and you have not shared the story with someone during that week then write a letter, mail it and tell the story to someone else.

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Tags: Andrew Von Eschenbach, Care To Live, CareToLive, FDA, Kerry Donahue, provenge, supreme court

This entry was posted on Monday, January 12th, 2009 at 8:35 am and is filed under The Dysfunctional FDA, The Lawsuit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.