The Arizona Supreme Court has upheld a lower court's ruling that the state's consumer fraud law covers sales of prescription drugs but reinstated a longstanding legal protection for drugmakers.

In a decision issued Thursday, the state Supreme Court ruled in a consumer fraud lawsuit in which a woman said a prescription antibiotic caused her lupus and that she wasn't warned appropriately.

The Supreme Court upheld a Court of Appeals ruling that prescription drugs are merchandise and that their sales and advertisements are covered by the Arizona Consumer Fraud Act.

The justices overturned the lower's court ruling on another issue. They said a 37-year-old Arizona court doctrine giving legal protection to drugmakers if they provide appropriate product warnings to doctors or other intermediaries remains intact.

A trial court will take up the woman's lawsuit again.