Consumers grievously harmed by generic drugs may find it virtually impossible to win compensation for their injuries as a result of a Supreme Court decision issued on Monday. By a narrow 5-to-4 margin, the court overturned lower court rulings that had awarded a New Hampshire woman $21 million for pain and suffering and other damages.

The decision leaves little recourse for people harmed by generic drugs, which now account for more than 80 percent of all prescriptions. It is imperative that the Food and Drug Administration write protective regulations holding generic companies liable for any harm their products cause.

There is no doubt that the New Hampshire woman, Karen Bartlett, suffered horrific injuries after taking a generic version of an anti-inflammatory drug, sulindac, for shoulder pain. She developed a very rare but extremely severe reaction in which two-thirds of her skin sloughed off. She was left permanently disfigured, legally blind, and with permanent damage to her lungs and esophagus.

The high court has now cut off her last pathway to compensation. In 2011, it ruled that generic-drug manufacturers could not be held liable for failing to warn consumers about a drug’s dangers because they must generally use the same safety label as the brand-name version they are copying. Now the court has also held that consumers cannot sue generic manufacturers for failing to design a safer drug because the generic must be chemically equivalent to the brand-name drug.