If you’ve been harmed by a drug that FDA has approved, your ability to sue the manufacturer has just been curtailed.

Allowing consumers to sue manufacturers would “undermine public health” and interfere with federal regulation of drugs and devices, by encouraging “lay judges and juries to second-guess” experts at the F.D.A., the government said in siding with the maker of a heart pump sued by the widow of a Pennsylvania man.

Science matters to this Administration only when it serves its broader goal of eliminating lawsuits. Bush to consumer: “Drop Dead. I don’t give a rip.”