Great example of why the FDA has to be abolished.

[joe]

I live in New York and I frequent the internet, so I encounter plenty of liberals. As an ex-liberal, I'm sympathetic to their feelings. But I feel they are too afraid of the market, and put too much faith in the government.

One of the best examples of this is the "FDA" argument. Want to get a liberal mad... tell them we should get rid of the FDA. "Without the FDA, we'll all be eating rats in our chop meat and the entire country will be overrun by vicious illness!"

This is a classic case of the "Patriot Act Syndrome," seen in conservatives. You liberals should relate to this. We all know that the Patriot Act is a huge violation of civil liberties, and is a scary piece of legislation. But those who support it don't care what the bill actually DOES, they only read the title. "PATRIOT act! America, **** yeah!"

Liberals do the same thing, but with government agencies. "Food and Drug administration. They are there to protect us. They keep our food clean. They keep those damn evil corporations in line."

Um yeah, all good. Except the fact that.. they do very little of that. In practice, they're a menace to regular Americans and are more in the business of harassment than protection.

Here's a great example of that.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/14-kids-fathered-with-free-sperm-feds-tell-man-to-stop/

This is the story of a minister, who gives away sperm to couples who can't have children, for free. He has fathered 14 children, helping out those families, who mutually agree to use his semen.

What does the FDA do? Applaud him for his generosity? Use him as an example of human kindness?

No, they shut down his operation. Why? Because he doesn't follow their requirement for getting STI tests before giving sperm.

The first thing you must ask yourself, is WHY THE HELL DOES THE FDA HAVE REQUIREMENTS FOR MEN TO GIVE SPERM. This is the food and drug administration. Why are they even involved?

The second thing is, why should they care what free people choose to do? This is couples who willingly, mutually, and happily use his sperm. If they want a blood test, they can get one from someone else. This guy does it for free, and if he has to take constant blood tests, he'll have to charge.

The FDA is now forcing this man to stop his operations. He's contesting that. But at what cost? Huge lawyer fees. Time spent in court. Meanwhile, the FDA is taking our tax dollars for all of this.

This is just but one example, and it is by no means an outlier. This stuff is happening everyday. The FDA is a menace to society, and to regular people.

The problem is, this isn't just an FDA problem. It's a government agency problem. You give a bureaucracy some federal government backing, and they run amok. They won't just try to achieve their intended goals. They expand, like a virus, and end up taking on responsibilities that have nothing to do with their initial purpose.

tl;dr, i know

But you liberals specifically, should really start to open your eyes to this stuff. A lot of you are smart, but you put blind faith into government. All you have to do is a little research, and you can find a million examples of federal bureaucracy invading the personal lives of people... for no good reason at all.

[RidonKs]

yeah, i'd much rather read in the story about rampant viral epidemics and diseased babies still in the womb. i dunno, i don't really consider it that unwholesome to force a 'sperm clinic' to check for STD's and require licensing. i mean, i follow your story and it sucks that this guy is getting the stick for being a good samaritan, but that's dangerous behaviour through which innocent people can easily get f*cked, and not in the good way.

i read a story about an immigrant and his mid-20s daughter who launched a yogurt business is socal or maybe the bay area. somewhere around there. this guy had been making yogurt for decades using his very special method from the old country, which i think used unpasteurized milk. anyway, the gist of it was that their practise went against fda standards pertaining to a regulation from immediately after the war. don't think much has changed since then?

here's the article (http://www.economist.com/node/18712862)

now obviously this would fall under the same heading as your story -- unintended collateral damage. and yeah, that probably does happen a lot, peeps getting jerked around by the system. but i have a sneaking hunch that it might be less a product of the regulations themselves and more of their validity in the here and now. i know, i know, more government agencies isn't the answer, but a review board to rule on the necessity of extending regulation and cutting it wherever possible. it's the outdatedness of the red tape that really drives people up the wall. but all that stuff just stays on the books until the following year. i'm sure there is some sort of review process already in place, but i doubt it's stringent enough.

[joe]

yeah, i'd much rather read in the story about rampant viral epidemics and diseased babies still in the womb. i dunno, i don't really consider it that unwholesome to force a 'sperm clinic' to check for STD's and require licensing. i mean, i follow your story and it sucks that this guy is getting the stick for being a good samaritan, but that's dangerous behaviour through which innocent people can easily get f*cked, and not in the good way.

i read a story about an immigrant and his mid-20s daughter who launched a yogurt business is socal or maybe the bay area. somewhere around there. this guy had been making yogurt for decades using his very special method from the old country, which i think used unpasteurized milk. anyway, the gist of it was that their practise went against fda standards pertaining to a regulation from immediately after the war. don't think much has changed since then?

here's the article (http://www.economist.com/node/18712862)

now obviously this would fall under the same heading as your story -- unintended collateral damage. and yeah, that probably does happen
a lot, peeps getting jerked around by the system. but i have a sneaking hunch that it might be less a product of the regulations themselves and more of their validity in the here and now. i know, i know, more government agencies isn't the answer, but a review board to rule on the necessity of extending regulation and cutting it wherever possible. it's the outdatedness of the red tape that really drives people up the wall. but all that stuff just stays on the books until the following year. i'm sure there is some sort of review process already in place, but i doubt it's stringent enough.

Think about what you're proposing. The regulators are failing, so we should.... regulate them?

You can call it a review board if you wish. But at the end of the day, it's a government agency trying to watch over another government agency. It's a bureaucracy.

The problem is, government bureaucracies = unchecked power. The people doing the checking aren't being checked. And they end up doing ridiculous things like my story above. Or, worse, taking handouts from the very industry they're supposed to regulate.

Do you really think there would be viral epidemics if we got rid of the FDA? Is the market really that horrible at weeding out bad companies?

Pop quiz for you.

1) The reason people start a business is to ________ (kill people, fly to mars, make a profit). If the business treats its customers poorly, their customers will ________ (keep buying from them, start buying more from them, find a better alternative). Therefore, the market itself ________ (forces businesses to satisfy their customers just to stay in business, forces businesses to kill people, forces businesses to be evil).

If a business is getting its customers sick, who will buy from them? It completely ignores basic human logic.

Besides, the market itself can regulate a food business in other ways. How about a private magazine/web site, that investigates the business practices of food companies? If people are really worried about safe food, you'll see stuff like that. Just like the movie "super size me" and other such things.

[Jailblazers7]

The FDA is a tricky one because of the potential damage an unregulated market for drugs could cause. The effects of modern pharmacueticals can have very deadly and debilitating consequences that don't appear for months or years.

I know the free market could supply regulatory institutions on its own to keep drug companies in check and test drugs but it would be a pretty huge leap of faith for the majority of Americans to just do away with the FDA.

[RidonKs]

Do you really think there would be viral epidemics if we got rid of the FDA? Is the market really that horrible at weeding out bad companies?
no, that was just a joke. the fact that the FDA is already in place means abolishing it would do less harm than would've occurred had it never existed in the first place.


Pop quiz for you.

1) The FDA is abolished. All of the sudden everyone who eats food from wal-mart is getting sick. What will those people do?

2) You're thinking of spending 4-500 bucks on Thanksgiving dinner. Your friend tells you not to get your food from X store, because their food isn't as high quality and it's more expensive. They suggest Y store instead. What do you do?

3) A company is consistently getting its customers sick. They lose business en masse. They can either start using better quality food, and enforce higher quality standards on themselves.. or go out of business. What do they do?

these aren't real situations. you made them up for your very specific purposes. i mean, it's not hard to figure out what you're trying to say. people react to word of mouth which gets around which means in the end, any malpractice will be punished by fewer future earnings.

it just.... it doesn't work like that. well okay, it can, but it doesn't happen like that anywhere near enough to base our entire economic enterprise on that logic. in reality, with supply chains and globalization and the like, tracing the real source of our products isn't that easy. take a strain of e-coli that slips into, i dunno, chicken. but since they don't know, the contaminated chicken is sent all over town, to grocery store after grocery store. it isn't about knowing which store has the healthy chicken because they all have the same goddamn chicken and none of it is healthy... except for Joe the Butcher, who hunts for his own meat.

or maybe my friend suggested that thanksgiving store because he put up 25% of the stake and wants it to do well. or maybe he had a stuffed up nose when he ate from the other place which made him not like it, thus unfairly punishing the what might be a fabulous restaurant on account of my idiot friend's lack of judgment.

but that third one is the best... let me ask you something, hmm? you phrased it as an ultimatum, either clean up your act or go out of business. in the absence of any regulators with real teeth, or hell even with the watchdogs at full attention, you think a CEO is going to frame the problem like that? there's always always always an alternative solution, and if you don't mind hurting a few people to avoid losing your business, great. get 'er done. that's the American way, and that's why red tape was introduced in the first place. nobody is arguing that there should be more across the board (though certainly in particular industries), but the role that regulation plays in economic management is absolutely crucial.


you changed your quiz but the points still stand. your hypothetical scenarios are simplistic and inapplicable to the world at large without major qualifiers.

[joe]

The FDA is a tricky one because of the potential damage an unregulated market for drugs could cause. The effects of modern pharmacueticals can have very deadly and debilitating consequences that don't appear for months or years.

I know the free market could supply regulatory institutions on its own to keep drug companies in check and test drugs but it would be a pretty huge leap of faith for the majority of Americans to just do away with the FDA.

Anything could have a deadly and debilitating consequence months or years later. I have headphones on every day, who knows what that will do to my ears long term? What about cell phone waves. Looking at LCD screens? Riding on bikes that may have poisonous paint. Nobody knew cigarettes were bad for you for quite a while.

We take risks when we buy things. Drugs are no different. The only alternative is just to make every new item illegal because, who knows that the long term effects will be?

Thing is, the FDA can't do anything special to catch dangerous drugs. All they do is seriously slow down the process, so it takes years and years for a new drug to hit the market. In that time, who knows how many lives could have been saved or improved?

And that's assuming the FDA is doing its job, which its not. They take money from some companies to get their pills out quickly. But others who can't afford the bribe can't get their stuff out at all. They artificially kill competition, which is probably worse for quality than anything.

And btw, it's not like the drugs we have out now are models of safety. "Side effects may include, dizzyness, diahrea, depression, suicidal thoughts, increased risk of gambling, or even death. If you feel pain in your arm while on this pill please call your doctor immediately as you may be having heart failure."

[joe]

no, that was just a joke. the fact that the FDA is already in place means abolishing it would do less harm than would've occurred had it never existed in the first place.


these aren't real situations. you made them up for your very specific purposes. i mean, it's not hard to figure out what you're trying to say. people react to word of mouth which gets around which means in the end, any malpractice will be punished by fewer future earnings.

it just.... it doesn't work like that. well okay, it can, but it doesn't happen like that anywhere near enough to base our entire economic enterprise on that logic. in reality, with supply chains and globalization and the like, tracing the real source of our products isn't that easy. take a strain of e-coli that slips into, i dunno, chicken. but since they don't know, the contaminated chicken is sent all over town, to grocery store after grocery store. it isn't about knowing which store has the healthy chicken because they all have the same goddamn chicken and none of it is healthy... except for Joe the Butcher, who hunts for his own meat.

or maybe my friend suggested that thanksgiving store because he put up 25% of the stake and wants it to do well. or maybe he had a stuffed up nose when he ate from the other place which made him not like it, thus unfairly punishing the what might be a fabulous restaurant on account of my idiot friend's lack of judgment.

but that third one is the best... let me ask you something, hmm? you phrased it as an ultimatum, either clean up your act or go out of business. in the absence of any regulators with real teeth, or hell even with the watchdogs at full attention, you think a CEO is going to frame the problem like that? there's always always always an alternative solution, and if you don't mind hurting a few people to avoid losing your business, great. get 'er done. that's the American way, and that's why red tape was introduced in the first place. nobody is arguing that there should be more across the board (though certainly in particular industries), but the role that regulation plays in economic management is absolutely crucial.


you changed your quiz but the points still stand. your hypothetical scenarios are simplistic and inapplicable to the world at large without major qualifiers.

I changed my quiz cuz at lot of the questions were redundant. I'll answer the rest in a bit..

[joe]

no, that was just a joke. the fact that the FDA is already in place means abolishing it would do less harm than would've occurred had it never existed in the first place.


these aren't real situations. you made them up for your very specific purposes. i mean, it's not hard to figure out what you're trying to say. people react to word of mouth which gets around which means in the end, any malpractice will be punished by fewer future earnings.

it just.... it doesn't work like that. well okay, it can, but it doesn't happen like that anywhere near enough to base our entire economic enterprise on that logic. in reality, with supply chains and globalization and the like, tracing the real source of our products isn't that easy. take a strain of e-coli that slips into, i dunno, chicken. but since they don't know, the contaminated chicken is sent all over town, to grocery store after grocery store. it isn't about knowing which store has the healthy chicken because they all have the same goddamn chicken and none of it is healthy... except for Joe the Butcher, who hunts for his own meat.

or maybe my friend suggested that thanksgiving store because he put up 25% of the stake and wants it to do well. or maybe he had a stuffed up nose when he ate from the other place which made him not like it, thus unfairly punishing the what might be a fabulous restaurant on account of my idiot friend's lack of judgment.

you changed your quiz but the points still stand. your hypothetical scenarios are simplistic and inapplicable to the world at large without major qualifiers.

Why do we have to trace the real source of our products? People don't need to know all of that. They just need to know that they went to Wal-Mart, ate the chicken, and got sick as all hell. Case closed. No more eating that chicken from wal-mart.

If you go to a hair salon, and the person messes up your hair, what do you really need to know? Do you need to know where she went to hair school, so you can no longer get haircuts from ANYONE who went there? Do you need to know what type of clippers she used, and not get a haircut from anyone who uses those clippers?

No. You just don't get your damn haircut from that stupid lady anymore. It's really that simple.


but that third one is the best... let me ask you something, hmm? you phrased it as an ultimatum, either clean up your act or go out of business. in the absence of any regulators with real teeth, or hell even with the watchdogs at full attention, you think a CEO is going to frame the problem like that? there's always always always an alternative solution, and if you don't mind hurting a few people to avoid losing your business, great. get 'er done. that's the American way, and that's why red tape was introduced in the first place. nobody is arguing that there should be more across the board (though certainly in particular industries), but the role that regulation plays in economic management is absolutely crucial.


The consumers are the watch dogs, that's what you don't get. You think consumers are all victims, and have no chance against the business machine. No. People have a choice to buy what they want to buy, from who they want to buy it from.

The CEO is going to frame the problem like this. Either I satisfy these people, and put out a product they're willing to buy.. or I don't make a profit.

What "alternative solutions" are there? You either satisfy your customers or you don't make as much profit. What alternative is there to that?

[Jailblazers7]

Anything could have a deadly and debilitating consequence months or years later. I have headphones on every day, who knows what that will do to my ears long term? What about cell phone waves. Looking at LCD screens? Riding on bikes that may have poisonous paint. Nobody knew cigarettes were bad for you for quite a while.

We take risks when we buy things. Drugs are no different. The only alternative is just to make every new item illegal because, who knows that the long term effects will be?

Thing is, the FDA can't do anything special to catch dangerous drugs. All they do is seriously slow down the process, so it takes years and years for a new drug to hit the market. In that time, who knows how many lives could have been saved or improved?

And that's assuming the FDA is doing its job, which its not. They take money from some companies to get their pills out quickly. But others who can't afford the bribe can't get their stuff out at all. They artificially kill competition, which is probably worse for quality than anything.

And btw, it's not like the drugs we have out now are models of safety. "Side effects may include, dizzyness, diahrea, depression, suicidal thoughts, increased risk of gambling, or even death. If you feel pain in your arm while on this pill please call your doctor immediately as you may be having heart failure."

I understand these arguments but you can just leave out stupid things like the first paragraph. Its insulting to my (and your) intelligence and adds absolutely nothing to the discussion.

I agree that the free-market would probably provide better institution to regulate drugs. Regulation could be split into specialties for drugs by disease, area of the body it treats, etc.

Getting rid of something like the FDA takes a TON of faith in the free-market, which is something a lot of people don't have. They want to be able to trust that someone is insuring the safety of these drugs or at least keeping a minimum standard of safety. The FDA may slow the process and the lives lost because of that is nothing to overlook, but what happens in the reverse scenario? What will happen if drugs are pushed through the process too quickly? People feel a little comfort knowing something is FDA approved.

I've discussed this with my one professor and we kind of agreed that a rating system would probably occur similar to bond ratings. There would be a system to signify the risk of a drug so the consumer can take on the possible risks if they choose to.

[joe]

I understand these arguments but you can just leave out stupid things like the first paragraph. Its insulting to my (and your) intelligence and adds absolutely nothing to the discussion.

I agree that the free-market would probably provide better institution to regulate drugs. Regulation could be split into specialties for drugs by disease, area of the body it treats, etc.

Getting rid of something like the FDA takes a TON of faith in the free-market, which is something a lot of people don't have. They want to be able to trust that someone is insuring the safety of these drugs or at least keeping a minimum standard of safety. The FDA may slow the process and the lives lost because of that is nothing to overlook, but what happens in the reverse scenario? What will happen if drugs are pushed through the process too quickly? People feel a little comfort knowing something is FDA approved.

I've discussed this with my one professor and we kind of agreed that a rating system would probably occur similar to bond ratings. There would be a system to signify the risk of a drug so the consumer can take on the possible risks if they choose to.

Well it seems we mostly agree on this, but I don't understand why you dissed my first paragraph? The point is, people have a view that since drugs may cause long term harm, they need to be regulated differently. My point was, a lot of things could cause long term harm. And that we all take risks when we choose to buy things. Not sure why you thought it was such a stupid comment.

But I definitely agree with what you're saying, as far as people not having faith in the free market. But I think that's why we're having this discussion, no? People aren't going to magically have faith in it, its virtues need to be talked about and debated. And plus, it's just fun to debate a bit, isn't it :D ?

[Jailblazers7]

Well it seems we mostly agree on this, but I don't understand why you dissed my first paragraph? The point is, people have a view that since drugs may cause long term harm, they need to be regulated differently. My point was, a lot of things could cause long term harm. And that we all take risks when we choose to buy things. Not sure why you thought it was such a stupid comment.

But I definitely agree with what you're saying, as far as people not having faith in the free market. But I think that's why we're having this discussion, no? People aren't going to magically have faith in it, its virtues need to be talked about and debated. And plus, it's just fun to debate a bit, isn't it :D ?

It was stupid because you are comparing a TV and bike paint to injesting a synthetically produced drug that almost surely has some form of harmful consequence. They are directly comparable to the danger with drugs is a fundamental part of their use while "poisonous bike paint" is one of those weird news stories that are impossible to predict. I just don't see how that paragraph was useful at all and it feels like you are trying to speak to me like I'm in middle school lol.

If the FDA were to get abolished, I think it would have to be phased out somehow. Allow the market institutions to develop and people will gradually build trust in them. I don't think we could just eliminate the FDA cold turkey. The trouble with that is convincing a government regulatory institution to give up power lol. Things like phasing out the FDA would almost surely have to come from the oval office.

[joe]

It was stupid because you are comparing a TV and bike paint to injesting a synthetically produced drug that almost surely has some form of harmful consequence. They are directly comparable to the danger with drugs is a fundamental part of their use while "poisonous bike paint" is one of those weird news stories that are impossible to predict. I just don't see how that paragraph was useful at all and it feels like you are trying to speak to me like I'm in middle school lol.

If the FDA were to get abolished, I think it would have to be phased out somehow. Allow the market institutions to develop and people will gradually build trust in them. I don't think we could just eliminate the FDA cold turkey. The trouble with that is convincing a government regulatory institution to give up power lol. Things like phasing out the FDA would almost surely have to come from the oval office.

Oh nahhh man, I'm sorry that it came off that way. I know you're a smart guy.

It's useful because one of the big "criticisms" of the free market, is that businesses may sell us dangerous products. My point was, a lot of what we buy could be dangerous, long term. Something like the FDA isn't going to stop that. Or, if it does, it does so while at the same time causing a lot of unintended problems and costing a lot of money.

I don't know if I'd agree that drugs are necessarily more dangerous. What if you live in a house with asbestos for 20 years? Or what if laptops really deform your sperm and can cause sickness in your kids? We're in the first generation of wide spread cell phone use.. do we really know how bad they are for your brain? I think singling out drugs isn't really fair.

Really sorry if I sounded condescending. I def. didn't mean it. And ya, I agree, public opinion wouldn't allow us to go cold turkey on the FDA. But hopefully public opinion can be changed, one fact at a time :pimp:

[Dasher]

The consequences in the short term of abolishing The FDA would get the agency reconstituted. Reform at The FDA is needed, but it is one of the few government agencies that I believe is necessary.

[nightprowler10]

I work in pharma manufacturing, which includes formulation, filling, and packaging of saline solution to cystic fibrosis drugs. Not offering an opinion but speaking from experience, having dealt with the FDA on and off for the last 10 years, I can say the following.

I hate the FDA. But I also realize they are a necessary force (almost used 'evil' instead :lol ). I work at a facility where we have, ourselves, written 100s of procedures that most of our workers don't follow correctly because they don't understand their importance. The FDA comes in and tells us to follow our own procedures, no more no less. Up to that point the FDA does a great job. And this is coming from someone who almost lost his job because of them back in '08.

All that said, they are corrupt and do get lobbied by the bigger pharma companies not to let the little guys challenge their superiority. To give you an example, they will not let anyone make plastic injectable vials even though it is proven to be safe and is allowed in Europe. But companies like Abbott and Baxter lobby the FDA not to allow anyone to make it, as it would force them to be competitive on their astronomically priced glass vials. With all the cases of microscopic glass shards being found in these vials lately, we've ramped up our efforts to challenge the FDA again (I'm actually on that project right now).

Also, keep in mind that from a pharma man's perspective, the FDA does not have anywhere near the amount of high standard of how the drug should be made as the European or Japanese agencies. FDA is more comparable to the Brazilian standard. Just making a room that is EU compliant for manufacturing is a massive undertaking. To meet the FDA standard all you have to do is out up plexiglass walls and paneled ceilings as you would in your basement, and you're good to go.

EDIT: I should mention that the FDA does require a properly designed HVAC system, which makes all the difference.

[joe]

I work in pharma manufacturing, which includes formulation, filling, and packaging of saline solution to cystic fibrosis drugs. Not offering an opinion but speaking from experience, having dealt with the FDA on and off for the last 10 years, I can say the following.

I hate the FDA. But I also realize they are a necessary force (almost used 'evil' instead :lol ). I work at a facility where we have, ourselves, written 100s of procedures that most of our workers don't follow correctly because they don't understand their importance. The FDA comes in and tells us to follow our own procedures, no more no less. Up to that point the FDA does a great job. And this is coming from someone who almost lost his job because of them back in '08.

All that said, they are corrupt and do get lobbied by the bigger pharma companies not to let the little guys challenge their superiority. To give you an example, they will not let anyone make plastic injectable vials even though it is proven to be safe and is allowed in Europe. But companies like Abbott and Baxter lobby the FDA not to allow anyone to make it, as it would force them to be competitive on their astronomically priced glass vials. With all the cases of microscopic glass shards being found in these vials lately, we've ramped up our efforts to challenge the FDA again (I'm actually on that project right now).

Also, keep in mind that from a pharma man's perspective, the FDA does not have anywhere near the amount of high standard of how the drug should be made as the European or Japanese agencies. FDA is more comparable to the Brazilian standard. Just making a room that is EU compliant for manufacturing is a massive undertaking. To meet the FDA standard all you have to do is out up plexiglass walls and paneled ceilings as you would in your basement, and you're good to go.

Want to give your opinion on why you think they're a necessary force (Or should I say, evil)?

[nightprowler10]

Want to give your opinion on why you think they're a necessary force (Or should I say, evil)?
Yeah there's actually a whole paragraph I forgot to write on that. :oldlol:

Basically, before the FDA cracked down on us, you'd be shocked how we were running the facility. Falsification of data, back-dating, poorly designed rooms, lack of training for employees so that they could follow our procedures, the list goes on. Keep in mind that we never falsified major data and never did so much as cause an infection due to our practices (thanks to the technology we use), but you could say that we were on a slippery slope, and it took quite a few observations from the FDA and changes in our old ways of thinking to get us to the point that we're attracting big guns like Mead Johnson and Merck.

You could argue that we eventually would've started losing business, and straightened up ourselves, but it might have taken something extreme like the loss of someone's organ, or worse, a life, for us to finally wake up. The FDA do make us practice stupid shit that makes no sense, but they also made the effort to understand the technology and made exceptions for us to help us improve our practices. Everyone I work with feels the same way as I do about the FDA, that yes, they put in hurdles for us at times that don't make much sense, they're usually a result of our Sr. management's inability to explain our technology to them. The FDA is also actually pretty good at getting down on the floor and talking to the people to see what they know compared to what they're supposed to know. It creates an environment of knowledge, not of fear.

In contrast, I will give you an example of countries like India and China where regulation does not exist. I have heard stories from people who install machines for them for drug manufacturing. They apparently falsify sterilization data, stability data, and virtually start running commercial lots a week after the installation of a brand new machine. I can tell you from my pharma experience, you NEVER want to do that, and I would ALWAYS recommend against using a facility for drugs that doesn't follow some regulation agency's guidance documents and follows some form of Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP).

I could go either way on the argument for privatizing FDA or have a private equivalent, but the thought committing a federal crime just by fabricating minor data is great mitigator! Hell, my GM can go to jail if it's bad enough and widespread!

There have of course been instances of plants, or parts of plants, shutting down because of the FDA, but it's usually due to the plant's own shady practices.

In conclusion, I guess I do feel that the FDA needs an overhaul, their standards aren't good enough compared to the funding they receive, but they are needed.

[rufuspaul]

Why are food and drugs regulated by the same agency? I've always wondered that.

[nightprowler10]

Why are food and drugs regulated by the same agency? I've always wondered that.
The regulations are very closely related from what I understand. I'm pretty sure the FDA is split up in many different sub-agencies though to deal with different industries.

[Droid101]

I gave you Aids, but at least I meant well. :confusedshrug:

[joe]

I don't understand why they would get sperm from this guy rather than going through the proper channels? And what kind of idiot parent would want it from a guy who isn't tested? I have no problem with them stopping this dude.

The point is, we have no idea why they went to that guy. We can't pretend to know exactly why anyone chooses anything in the market. That's why it's silly and arrogant for the government to try and micromanage peoples choices.

People should be free to choose what products they use. They should also be free to deal with the consequences of their decisions.

[joe]

Yeah there's actually a whole paragraph I forgot to write on that. :oldlol:

Basically, before the FDA cracked down on us, you'd be shocked how we were running the facility. Falsification of data, back-dating, poorly designed rooms, lack of training for employees so that they could follow our procedures, the list goes on. Keep in mind that we never falsified major data and never did so much as cause an infection due to our practices (thanks to the technology we use), but you could say that we were on a slippery slope, and it took quite a few observations from the FDA and changes in our old ways of thinking to get us to the point that we're attracting big guns like Mead Johnson and Merck.

You could argue that we eventually would've started losing business, and straightened up ourselves, but it might have taken something extreme like the loss of someone's organ, or worse, a life, for us to finally wake up. The FDA do make us practice stupid shit that makes no sense, but they also made the effort to understand the technology and made exceptions for us to help us improve our practices. Everyone I work with feels the same way as I do about the FDA, that yes, they put in hurdles for us at times that don't make much sense, they're usually a result of our Sr. management's inability to explain our technology to them. The FDA is also actually pretty good at getting down on the floor and talking to the people to see what they know compared to what they're supposed to know. It creates an environment of knowledge, not of fear.

In contrast, I will give you an example of countries like India and China where regulation does not exist. I have heard stories from people who install machines for them for drug manufacturing. They apparently falsify sterilization data, stability data, and virtually start running commercial lots a week after the installation of a brand new machine. I can tell you from my pharma experience, you NEVER want to do that, and I would ALWAYS recommend against using a facility for drugs that doesn't follow some regulation agency's guidance documents and follows some form of Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP).

I could go either way on the argument for privatizing FDA or have a private equivalent, but the thought committing a federal crime just by fabricating minor data is great mitigator! Hell, my GM can go to jail if it's bad enough and widespread!

There have of course been instances of plants, or parts of plants, shutting down because of the FDA, but it's usually due to the plant's own shady practices.

In conclusion, I guess I do feel that the FDA needs an overhaul, their standards aren't good enough compared to the funding they receive, but they are needed.

Appreciate your informed opinion. I disagree with some of your conclusions.

Your company wasn't hurting anyone, and it wasn't killing anyone. Whoever runs your company is being forced to pay extra money to comply with FDA regulations that overall weren't necessary, with prison as a threat. If these updates were necessary, the higher ups would have installed them without being forced. What other uses could that money have been used for? Hiring more employees, further research, etc.

What about a company that isn't able to afford the regulatory cost? What about the companies that never get off the ground because they can't afford them?

I'm not trying to be inflammatory towards you by any means, and this isn't a personal attack. Please don't take it that way.

You say that there were plants that were shut down by the FDA, but mostly because of their own shady practices. Well, if they were committing shady practices, why not let the market oust them? Why do we need a potentially corrupt organization shutting down companies? You already agreed that they take money under the table. How do we know that wasn't what shut those companies down?

[joe]

I gave you Aids, but at least I meant well. :confusedshrug:

Again, this was the choice of free people making a mutually agreed upon trade. Just because you wouldn't make that trade, doesn't make it wrong.

You or I have no idea why the people did it. Maybe they know the man and trust him? Maybe they like the fact that it's free? The point is, we don't know. And neither does the FDA. To pretend that they know what's best for people, more than the people themselves, is arrogant.

[Droid101]

Again, this was the choice of free people making a mutually agreed upon trade. Just because you wouldn't make that trade, doesn't make it wrong.

You are assuming that those people knew they can get AIDS (or any disease!) from doing this.

You must realize that some people are very uneducated. FDA is there to protect them, not the smart folks like you and I.

[RidonKs]

Well, if they were committing shady practices, why not let the market oust them?
because once it's in the package, it all looks the same. and while your market forces are adjusting and reacting and warning folks against shopping at the new Drugmart, which trust me doesn't happen overnight, innocent peop-- sorry, innocent sheeple are plucking the bottles off the shelves and ingesting substances that are potentially very harmful. and that's the thing... you wouldn't know how harmful until enough people were sick or dead enough to spell out the message. meanwhile... people are getting sick and dying.

get it? this doesn't apply across the entire spectrum of goods and services, but surely with regards to scientifically advanced medicine, not every snake oil salesmen should be allowed to set up shop? think about the repercussions of allowing something like that. Dasher said it best, the mere prospect of shutting down the national health and food regulator would send the current economy into a tailspin anyway and it'd be right back on the agenda the next quarter.

[Droid101]

To pretend that they know what's best for people, more than the people themselves, is arrogant.
Also, ha.

I know what's best for many people, much more than they know for themselves.

The problem is, many people in the world are ignorant or just not smart enough to realize what is best for them.

[joe]

because once it's in the package, it all looks the same. and while your market forces are adjusting and reacting and warning folks against shopping at the new Drugmart, which trust me doesn't happen overnight, innocent peop-- sorry, innocent sheeple are plucking the bottles off the shelves and ingesting substances that are potentially very harmful. and that's the thing... you wouldn't know how harmful until enough people were sick or dead enough to spell out the message. meanwhile... people are getting sick and dying.

get it? this doesn't apply across the entire spectrum of goods and services, but surely with regards to scientifically advanced medicine, not every snake oil salesmen should be allowed to set up shop? think about the repercussions of allowing something like that. Dasher said it best, the mere prospect of shutting down the national health and food regulator would send the current economy into a tailspin anyway and it'd be right back on the agenda the next quarter.


More people die in America every year from prescription drug abuse than die from heroin and cocaine combined. That stunning finding comes in a new report Tuesday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC found a fourfold increase in deaths from prescription narcotics over the past decade. Not surprisingly, it coincides with a fourfold increase in the number of prescriptions written for the powerful painkillers.

In 2008, the most recent year for which there are statistics, there were 20,044 overdose deaths from prescription drugs. Of those, 14,800 were from narcotic painkillers.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/11/01/prescription-drug-deaths-skyrocket/#ixzz1hIMhknNC


Dude, the point of this is, the FDA doesn't really do a good job of regulating. They are involved in a lot of things that have nothing to do with food and drugs at all. They take bribes. They are corrupted.

You talk about how bad it'd be without a regulatory body. But you ignore the fact, that the regulatory body is a corrupt nightmare. And it isn't so good with them, either.

But at least without them we don't have all the other non-sense. The loss of tax dollars that could be spent on better things, the lack of competition, the harassment of innocent free people, the extra costs it puts on business, etc.

People would get sick and die from pills without the FDA. But they do that now anyway, and even if it would be worse without them.. net net we'd be better off.

And btw, leading to another point, this is a big problem with American's (I know your'e Canadian). We have a ridiculous government budget, that has to be cut... but nobody wants to cut ANYTHING. FDA, nope. EPA, nope. Wars, nope. Social Security, nope. Welfare, nope.

At some point, we have to cut something. But defenders of government just won't give an inch.

[RidonKs]

yeah, i wasn't speaking with much conviction about the FDA in particular. i'm aware of it but i've got no in depth insight. and you're right, the us is in a fiscal nightmare, no doubt about that. there will have to be cuts and maybe the FDA will be included.

but the way you're phrasing these arguments doesn't sound like cuts are what you have in mind. you want to blow the damn thing up. which i think is insane, so that's why i'm responding to you theoretically. obviously the institution as it runs on a day-by-day basis is corrupt, just about every department in your country is. but the necessity of the institution stays the hand of the executioner. this one is very important because it ATTEMPTS to demarcate which substances are harmful to put in our bodies and which aren't. there are all sorts of criticisms you can bring up, but none of them are going to overwhelm that essential point. yeah, people abuse it by O/Ding. not much you can do about that, you're right. nor the shady dealings between the corporate world and the nanny state, corruption's part of the parcel.

nevertheless, it's a necessary institution. it's also the sort of process that hides its biggest successes from the public. kind of like the FBI. crises get reported but nobody talks much about successful close shaves. i'm sure there have been many over the years that have saved a lot of lives.

so all of that is why i consider it necessary.



But defenders of government just won't give an inch.
let me just say that this is bullshit. i know you hate the two party machine as much as i do, but those are still the guys who have say over your policy. and whenever they butt heads, it is decidedly one side that refuses to budge far more often than the other. to call democrats stubborn at this point in time, with everything that's gone on over the last two years, is insane. everything has been put on the table by congressional democrats and the white house; even social security. they want to solve the problem. it's the republicans who refuse to move on the tax issue that has the whole situation knotted and close to irreconcilable.

but if you were just talking about 'defenders of government' on this site, then yeah, whatever. there sure are a lot of douches on the internet.

[Kblaze8855]

You say that there were plants that were shut down by the FDA, but mostly because of their own shady practices. Well, if they were committing shady practices, why not let the market oust them?

Because a drug company is playing with peoples lives.

Why wait for someone to die or suffer somehow with a medical situation that could have been avoided so the world knows not to buy drugs from some shady company?

This isnt a pencil company who you can break a few and not buy more. Drug companies deal with life and death. Cant just...wait and see if you are selling death so the market weeds you out.

The system wont ever be perfect but drug companies arent the place for less oversight.

If I trust anyone less than the government its the morals of people out to sell magic pills to the desperate.

The very nature of the industry is immoral to me. Lets figure out how to save lives and make people well...then charge for it. If there is anything that I feel should be free in this country its a pill that cn keep you alive. I understand why it cant be. The millions spent on R&D. But cut out a lot of that red tape forced overhead and people who can just rush a miracle product to shelves will do it for the money.

If the market filters them out in time...ok. But what about the people taking heart pills made of ground up trix cereal before they die and the world figures it out?

The FDA will never protect people perfectly. But im all for anything that keeps companies taking the extra step to be sure they arent killing people to fix a cough.

Now...a man agrees to take the pills without the testing? Knowing the risks? Im good. For the most part. But the issue needs more thought than I have time to put in at the moment.

But ill say this...

Give me rights to a pill that cures ____ that I can sell for millions...tomorrow...or make me test it for 5 years....im probably giving it to some monkeys then some humans and waiting 6 months to check on them....then getting paid.

And I suspect I care more about the little guy than a lot of people.....

Its not the place to skimp on the involvment of someone over your shulder making you do the extra legwork.

[kentatm]

Because a drug company is playing with peoples lives.

Why wait for someone to die or suffer somehow with a medical situation that could have been avoided so the world knows not to buy drugs from some shady company?

This isnt a pencil company who you can break a few and not buy more. Drug companies deal with life and death. Cant just...wait and see if you are selling death so the market weeds you out.

The system wont ever be perfect but drug companies arent the place for less oversight.

If I trust anyone less than the government its the morals of people out to sell magic pills to the desperate.

The very nature of the industry is immoral to me. Lets figure out how to save lives and make people well...then charge for it. If there is anything that I feel should be free in this country its a pill that cn keep you alive. I understand why it cant be. The millions spent on R&D. But cut out a lot of that red tape forced overhead and people who can just rush a miracle product to shelves will do it for the money.

If the market filters them out in time...ok. But what about the people taking heart pills made of ground up trix cereal before they die and the world figures it out?

The FDA will never protect people perfectly. But im all for anything that keeps companies taking the extra step to be sure they arent killing people to fix a cough.

Now...a man agrees to take the pills without the testing? Knowing the risks? Im good. For the most part. But the issue needs more thought than I have time to put in at the moment.

But ill say this...

Give me rights to a pill that cures ____ that I can sell for millions...tomorrow...or make me test it for 5 years....im probably giving it to some monkeys then some humans and waiting 6 months to check on them....then getting paid.

And I suspect I care more about the little guy than a lot of people.....

Its not the place to skimp on the involvment of someone over your shulder making you do the extra legwork.

:applause:

[eliteballer]

The first thing you must ask yourself, is WHY THE HELL DOES THE FDA HAVE REQUIREMENTS FOR MEN TO GIVE SPERM. This is the food and drug administration. Why are they even involved?

OP cannot be serious. There are health, emotional, and social ramifications

[BEAST Griffin]

The FDA is in the pocket of industry.

Just look at their regulations of the sweetener market. Couldn't call Stevia a sugar substitute. Couldn't call Xylitol a sugar substitute. Only their big industry buddies who sold Aspartame and Splenda for example could refer to their product as a sugar substitute.

I think those regulations softened recently, but still.

While it may seem like the FDA exists to keep big industry in check, I say they empower big industry more than they keep them in check. Just look into how many former FDA members get jobs for pharmaceutical companies and the other way around.

Revolving doors, big time in the medical industrial complex.

[joe]

Because a drug company is playing with peoples lives.

Why wait for someone to die or suffer somehow with a medical situation that could have been avoided so the world knows not to buy drugs from some shady company?

This isnt a pencil company who you can break a few and not buy more. Drug companies deal with life and death. Cant just...wait and see if you are selling deah so the market weeds you out.

The system wont ever be perfect but drug companies arent the place for less oversight.

If I trust anyone less than the government its the morals of people out to sell magic pills to the desperate.

The very nature of the industry is immoral to me. Lets figure out how to save lives and make people well...then charge for it. If there is anything that I feel should be free in this country its a pill that cn keep you alive. I understand why it cant be. The millions spent on R&D. But cut out a lot of that red tape forced overhead and people who can just rush a miracle product to shelves will do it for the money.

If the market filters them out in time...ok. But what about the people taking heart pills made of ground up trix cereal before they die and the world figures it out?

The FDA will never protect people perfectly. But im all for anything that keeps companies taking the extra step to be sure they arent killing people to fix a cough.

Now...a man agrees to take the pills without the testing? Knowing the risks? Im good. For the most part. But the issue needs more thought than I have time to put in at the moment.

But ill say this...

Give me rights to a pill that cures ____ that I can sell for millions...tomorrow...or make me test it for 5 years....im probably giving it to some monkeys then some humans and waiting 6 months to check on them....then getting paid.

And I suspect I care more about the little guy than a lot of people.....

Its not the place to skimp on the involvment of someone over your shulder making you do the extra legwork.

When I seen Kblaze wrote a long post in my thread about ending the FDA, I figured it would be pretty negative towards me. So I appreciate your calm tone while disagreeing.

I think the fact that drugs are playing with peoples lives, is more the reason to get the government out of the way. Any industry the government tries to einvolve itself with, gets screwed up. Higher prices, less efficiency, more corruption.

Post office.. consistently losing money and raising prices/reducing services.

Housing market.. Fannie and Freddie encourage subprime lending and help bullhead the crisis.

Health care.. prices are catastrophically high. Government involvement all over (medicare, medicaid, more regulated than most other industries, licensing standards)

Banks. The industry government is most involved with. Fixing interest rates, guaranteeing deposits, bailouts.

People wanting to make a profit off of medicine is not a bad thing. It's a good thing. Because the only way to profit would be to produce the best, most trusted product for the cheapest price.

People can see that cell phones and tv's continuously get cheaper and better over time. But they don't make the connection that capitalism, and free markets is what allows that. The same thing would happen with medicine... if we allowed it.

Kblaze, what do you think about the link I posted in the OP? You defend the FDA, but that's got to be a bit ridiculous even to you, no?

[falc39]

This has got to be one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard of. It's funny too because this huge government agency is coming down on this poor guy lol. But in reality it is sad and unbelievable.

Some people "give their sperm" and impregnate a bunch of ladies all the time... where's the FDA??? What if I decide to "give my sperm" to someone over the holidays??? Why don't we just have the FDA get in the business of every sexual encounter and pregnancy?! wouldn't that be a great idea???

News flash!! Men have been giving their sperm since the beginning of human civilization... and the human race turned out just fine, without the FDA regulating it (believe it or not). It's one of our biological goals in life. It does not need to be made an issue :facepalm :facepalm :facepalm

And to add to it... HE WAS DOING IT FOR FREE. He wasn't charging anyone or ripping anyone off. Wtf is this world coming to lol

CAN MAN NOT EXIST WITHOUT THE FREEDOM TO SPREAD HIS SEED?!?! LOL

[joe]

OP cannot be serious. There are health, emotional, and social ramifications

Health: A couple couldn't have a baby for whatever reason.

Emotional: Desiring to get pregnant they sought out this minister who was giving away his semen for free. They trust him and use his semen. They have a baby.

Ramifications: This couple that before couldn't have a baby, now has one and is completely happy with their decision.

Let me steal a line from Falc. Should condomless sex be illegal without taking a blood test within 7 days before the act?

[nightprowler10]

Appreciate your informed opinion. I disagree with some of your conclusions.

Your company wasn't hurting anyone, and it wasn't killing anyone. Whoever runs your company is being forced to pay extra money to comply with FDA regulations that overall weren't necessary, with prison as a threat. If these updates were necessary, the higher ups would have installed them without being forced. What other uses could that money have been used for? Hiring more employees, further research, etc.

What about a company that isn't able to afford the regulatory cost? What about the companies that never get off the ground because they can't afford them?

I'm not trying to be inflammatory towards you by any means, and this isn't a personal attack. Please don't take it that way.

You say that there were plants that were shut down by the FDA, but mostly because of their own shady practices. Well, if they were committing shady practices, why not let the market oust them? Why do we need a potentially corrupt organization shutting down companies? You already agreed that they take money under the table. How do we know that wasn't what shut those companies down?
There is nothing about your post that's inflammatory at all. :cheers:

There seem to be a couple of separate points you're making in this post, I'll try to offer my opinion on them all.

The cost of following FDA regulations is so trivial that in no way would it make a large enough difference for us to be able to increase headcount. If anything, FDA cracking down on us actually created jobs since we had to actually invest in a training department. FDA requiring us to cut down on our deviations per lot made us investigate more and realize we were running each shift with too low a head count. Seriously, pharmaceuticals is not one industry where you have to worry about that sort of thing. As to your point about not harming anyone, this is pharmaceuticals we're talking about, you can't afford to learn from your mistakes. You can't afford to go so far down the path of noncompliance that someone goes blind from your glaucoma medication. Once again, I'll reference unregulated markets such as India, China, and also Egypt's practices and how they don't even sterilize medication that will go into people's lungs, eyes, and bloodstreams! That is quite frankly criminal and I would never work for such a company that risks people's well being for a few bucks (it literally takes 2 hours to sterilize each batch).

The astronomical cost I WAS talking about earlier has more to do with what EU requirements state, not so much the FDA. And it's actually relatively easy to get a pharma company off the ground as long as you know what you're doing. One of our newest customers is basically two upper middle class Indian guys in their 30s. You just need to know your way around the regulations book.

FDA's corruption is a separate issue, and its mostly relatively little stuff like not letting certain techs breathe or delaying inspections on purpose, or so I've heard. Shutting down facilities that I was talking about? That was Abbott and Baxter, two companies that have good relations with the FDA. But if you're selling drugs with glass shards in them because you're cutting corners, yeah you should get ****ed. By the way, FDA doesn't literally shut them down, they just fine them astronomical amounts, but it takes a lot. The only time my plant was under threat of having its doors closed was when we had three sterility positives in one year. THREE. It basically means that on three separate instances, we have microorganisms growing in our product. We were very lucky not to get fined to oblivion.

[joe]

There is nothing about your post that's inflammatory at all. :cheers:

There seem to be a couple of separate points you're making in this post, I'll try to offer my opinion on them all.

The cost of following FDA regulations is so trivial that in no way would it make a large enough difference for us to be able to increase headcount. If anything, FDA cracking down on us actually created jobs since we had to actually invest in a training department. FDA requiring us to cut down on our deviations per lot made us investigate more and realize we were running each shift with too low a head count. Seriously, pharmaceuticals is not one industry where you have to worry about that sort of thing. As to your point about not harming anyone, this is pharmaceuticals we're talking about, you can't afford to learn from your mistakes. You can't afford to go so far down the path of noncompliance that someone goes blind from your glaucoma medication. Once again, I'll reference unregulated markets such as India, China, and also Egypt's practices and how they don't even sterilize medication that will go into people's lungs, eyes, and bloodstreams! That is quite frankly criminal and I would never work for such a company that risks people's well being for a few bucks (it literally takes 2 hours to sterilize each batch).

The astronomical cost I WAS talking about earlier has more to do with what EU requirements state, not so much the FDA. And it's actually relatively easy to get a pharma company off the ground as long as you know what you're doing. One of our newest customers is basically two upper middle class Indian guys in their 30s. You just need to know your way around the regulations book.

FDA's corruption is a separate issue, and its mostly relatively little stuff like not letting certain techs breathe or delaying inspections on purpose, or so I've heard. Shutting down facilities that I was talking about? That was Abbott and Baxter, two companies that have good relations with the FDA. But if you're selling drugs with glass shards in them because you're cutting corners, yeah you should get ****ed. By the way, FDA doesn't literally shut them down, they just fine them astronomical amounts, but it takes a lot. The only time my plant was under threat of having its doors closed was when we had three sterility positives in one year. THREE. It basically means that on three separate instances, we have microorganisms growing in our product. We were very lucky not to get fined to oblivion.

Very cool dude. I'm adding your opinion to the "fda" folder in my brain, and taking it into account. It won't overall change my views, because there's so many shenanigans that the fda partakes in. I recognize that you had an overall positive experience with them, but the negatives still outweigh the positives. Still, it's good to hear the other side of the story.

[joe]

FDA Shields Drug Companies From Lawsuits

Last month, the FDA revealed its latest protective policy for drug companies in a statement that said people who believe they have been injured by drugs approved by the FDA should not be allowed to sue drug companies in state courts.

"We think that if your company complies with the FDA processes, if you bring forward the benefits and risks of your drug, and let your information be judged through a process with highly trained scientists, you should not be second-guessed by state courts that don't have the same scientific knowledge," said Scott Gottlieb, the FDA's deputy commissioner for medical and scientific affairs.

The agency's assertion of "federal preemption" was included as a preamble to its new drug labeling guidelines.

The claim of preemption was quickly attacked by trial lawyers and members of Congress as another effort by the Bush administration to limit the public's ability to bring and win lawsuits, according to the January 19, 2006 Washington Post.

"Eliminating the rights of individuals to hold negligent drug companies accountable puts patients in even more danger than they already are in from drug company executives that put profits before safety," said Ken Suggs, president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America.

"The fact that the drug industry can get the FDA to rewrite the rules so that CEOs can escape accountability for putting dangerous and deadly drugs on the market is the scariest example yet of how much control these big corporations have over our political process," Mr Suggs told the Post.

In response to the FDA's announcement, Senator Kennedy issued a statement that said: "It's a typical abuse by the Bush Administration - take a regulation to improve the information that doctors and patients receive about prescription drugs and turn it into a protection against liability for the drug industry."

The National Conference of State Legislatures, a bipartisan group that represents state lawmakers, accused the FDA of trying to seize authority that it did not have.


http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/articles/drugs-medical/fda-00118.html

[Kblaze8855]

The free market still exists with drug companies. Being told to double and triple check to make sure they arent selling death tablets and not being able to call snake oil a cure for cancer doesnt mean they arent practicing capitalism. It means that you cant play those bullshit games with people in situations that make them irrational.

A drug company isnt sending mail or selling beach houses. Its selling chemicals designed to alter the human body. Sometimes in radical ways that cant be reversed. Even with 5-10 sometimes 20 years of research with millions spent on redundant studies and trials to please the FDA they still put out products that in mass use kill way more people than is acceptable and have to pull them off the shelves then deal with decades of legal wars as the victims of the faulty drugs die off and their family asks for millions.

But your idea...due to hating the idea of "big government" or whatever it is people want to call...what id have to call in this case common sense....

Lets remove the people standing over the shoulders of the drug company making them have...clean facilities...prove the things they claim...lets let them just....what? Do whatever, say whatever, and sell whatever...because the free market will straighten it out by a storm of lawsuits when 12 million people die horrible deaths taking pain killers that dissolve the connective tissue holding their organs in place.

Yes. Lets let people skip the process that even with years of mandatory testing still puts deadly chemicals on the shelves...

Because....you think double checking and meticulous testing...is...hurting the free market?

This is not the government telling a silkworm farm that figured out how to make the best silk in the world in...Kansas...that they cant keep making it because of some redtape mumbo jumbo.

Its the government saying...

If you are gonna take the seeds of a rare fruit tree in Burma, boil it in sea snake venom, and coat it in modified opium...

You cant slap a label on it that says it fixes depression....if there isnt some science behind it and a lot of testing to prove it.

You dont get to alter an ill customers brain chemistry with a pill because...until one of them drops dead or loses his mind and thinks hes Busta Rhymes....its the free market at work waiting to decide which companies are on the level.

It might be fine for some things.

But id like to know that someone is forcing the company I buy my kids medication from to check it over and over and over.

I dont want to find out a pill causes rectal hallucinations and random bouts of mindless screaming after ive been taking it for 3 weeks.

And the more testing done to be sure it doesnt...the better.

And if you even open the door for companies o come in and skimp on testing just because the free market will weed out the shitty ones...you give the shitty ones too long to wipe out the sick people taking their snake oil.

The market might correct it. But not before a hell of a lot more harm than good was done.

This isnt a teddy bear factory being run into the ground by big brother checking to see if the eyes can come off and choke a dumb kid to oeasily.

Its a company selling hyaluronic acid to take into your body. Its compounds taken from nature and the lab combined to do...something. To your body.

This shit can kill you when its done RIGHT.

Which is why we dont need to make it any easier for the people doing it wrong.

[Kblaze8855]

And where does the idea that drugs dont get better with the FDA come from anyway?

The FDA has been around along long loooooooong time.

We pretending medicine isnt advancing?

Finding out you had AIDS in the 80s meant you were probably gonna be dead next year. People used to find out about it then die...next week. The life expectancy of an AIDs patient quadrupled since just the early 90s when they already had a good grasp on how to fight it. 10 years earlier it was still called GRID and killed everyone who got it. Quickly.

Our understanding of the human body and what we can do to make it last longer is increasing all the time.

But somehow we arent letting it happen? And the reason it isnt....is the FDA?

There are diseases that could easily have killed you 50 years ago that you wont miss work for now. At one point the flu killed almost 5% of the worlds population in a two year stretch. The 2009/2010 "pandemic" killed 18 thousand people worldwide. Too many. But its not the 300 million it would be if it were still killing at the rate it used to.

Disease has gotten its ass kicked at a rate never before seen in history.

But the FDA isnt allowing us to advance?

Tell me....anyone here got the mumps? Polio? Your kids have the rickets or did the world figure out they need vitamin d?

Anyones town get wiped out by strep throat or whooping cough?

What do you think happened?

They just decided to ease up on on their own?

FDA or no humanity is getting better fighting disease every day.

And of course now that ive said it some virus will cause zombies to take over the world next year.

My bad folks.

[iamgine]

No organization is perfect. FDA is necessary.

[joe]

[QUOTE=Kblaze8855]The free market still exists with drug companies. Being told to double and triple check to make sure they arent selling death tablets and not being able to call snake oil a cure for cancer doesnt mean they arent practicing capitalism. It means that you cant play those bullshit games with people in situations that make them irrational.



You sound very biased against free markets. Why do you assume that a free market in medicine would automatically equal snake oil salesman? And then what are the bribe-accepting FDA bureaucrats? Angels?


A drug company isnt sending mail or selling beach houses. Its selling chemicals designed to alter the human body. Sometimes in radical ways that cant be reversed. Even with 5-10 sometimes 20 years of research with millions spent on redundant studies and trials to please the FDA they still put out products that in mass use kill way more people than is acceptable and have to pull them off the shelves then deal with decades of legal wars as the victims of the faulty drugs die off and their family asks for millions.


If the free market is the best, most efficient distributor of resources, than it's the best, most efficient distributor of resources. That fact doesn't change depending on what you're selling. If you don't agree that the free market works best, why even have it in any market? If government regulators can do a better job of telling people what's best for them, why not have a Beach House and Mail Administration too?

I suppose you'll say because drugs are especially dangerous, and need more regulation. But if you think the free market is going to deliver the best, most awesome beach house.. why would it not deliver the best, safest pills?



But your idea...due to hating the idea of "big government" or whatever it is people want to call...what id have to call in this case common sense....

Lets remove the people standing over the shoulders of the drug company making them have...clean facilities...prove the things they claim...lets let them just....what? Do whatever, say whatever, and sell whatever...because the free market will straighten it out by a storm of lawsuits when 12 million people die horrible deaths taking pain killers that dissolve the connective tissue holding their organs in place.


I actually agree with you here, though I think you way overexaggerated with that 12 million number. If we got rid of the FDA, there probably would be a transition period where people didn't know which companies to trust. Some wouldn't be as good as others, and people would get sick. That's why I think a slow phase out of the FDA would be better than a cold turkey abolishment.

However, you're still assuming that due to the FDA, drug companies are being kept in check, and without it they'll run amok and try to kill people. There's a lot of evidence to show that the FDA is doing a very poor job of actually regulating the medicine. Instead they seem more focused on bothering regular people and giving favors to whoever is paying them the nicest bribe.



This is not the government telling a silkworm farm that figured out how to make the best silk in the world in...Kansas...that they cant keep making it because of some redtape mumbo jumbo.

Its the government saying...

If you are gonna take the seeds of a rare fruit tree in Burma, boil it in sea snake venom, and coat it in modified opium...

You cant slap a label on it that says it fixes depression....if there isnt some science behind it and a lot of testing to prove it.


Dude, we don't know exactly if all vitamins work. We don't know what some of their true effects are. They still get sold. People buy them. Same with New Age medicine. Who says there has to be stone cold science behind every pill?

I think people are only this afraid of the market on message boards. In real life, people take chances with products all the time. You eat candy you've never heard of. Who knows what's in that? You wear shoes that might not be designed properly, maybe you could twist your ankle playing ball.

Seriously, how stupid do you think people are? Why would a business man want to sell people poison? How does that make sense? Not only will his business not last long at all, but he'll be sued and lose everything he has. You can't just go selling products with poison in them.

If you say your pill cures depression, and it doesn't, you'll either lose customers, or people will actually get a placebo effect out of it and it's a win-win. I'm not sure what you're so afraid of, honestly.


But id like to know that someone is forcing the company I buy my kids medication from to check it over and over and over.


How about that person be.... you

[joe]

Well that's not exactly right. TV's and other technology get cheaper over time because of technological advances. Microchips can do the same thing they did 5 years ago on a smaller piece of silicon because the lines written on them get thinner every year, and thus the TVs that use those chips are cheaper. That's not the free market, that's just scientific improvement, and it will stop sooner or later. The free market won't change that. It's the same case for a lot of other things. Factory processes to build things just tend to get cheaper over time, whether capitalism is involved or not.
I'm not saying the free market isn't a good force, but that's a bad example of what it does.

So who's advancing the technology if not people with at least some bit of economic freedom? Or does science just automatically advance on its own irrespective of what us humans do..?

In some cases government grants fund this research. But I'd venture to say that most of it comes from private companies R&D departments. What say you?

[N0Skillz]

So who's advancing the technology if not people with at least some bit of economic freedom? Or does science just automatically advance on its own irrespective of what us humans do..?

In some cases government grants fund this research. But I'd venture to say that most of it comes from private companies R&D departments. What say you?


Government grants......... by a longshot

[joe]

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-42844396/fda-corruption-letter-authenticated-lawyers-start-your-engines/


(MoneyWatch) Lawyers who want to sue drug companies will be drooling over the news that the FDA has "certified" a 2009 letter sent anonymously by FDA staff to President Obama describing "systemic corruption and wrongdoing that permeates all levels of FDA."

The letter made headlines when it was sent last year to John Podesta of Obama's transition team. Written by a group of scientists on FDA letter head -- but with their names blacked out for fear of retaliation -- the letter describes a nightmare of bungling and self-dealing among higher-ups at the drug safety agency. It begs Obama to step in and reform the shop:

... many other FDA managers who have failed to protect the American public, who have violated laws, rules, and regulations, who have suppressed or altered scientific or technological findings and conclusions, who have abused their power and authority, and who have engaged in illegal retaliation against those who speak out, have not been held accountable and remain in place.

The letter cites three dark chapters in FDA history:

Former chief Andrew von Eschenbach's interference with the approval of a knee device.
The approval of a breast cancer detection device by director of the Office of Device Evaluation Donna-Bea Tillman even though all FDA experts voted against it, following a phone call from Connecticut congressman Christopher Shays.
And the approval by Daniel Schultz of a medical device that prevents tissue scarring against the unanimous opinion of his scientific staff.



(NaturalNews) The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today stands accused of taking part in the kidnapping and illegal extradition of a permanent resident of Ecuador, in violation of both international law and Ecuadorian law.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/027750_Greg_Caton_FDA.html#ixzz1hMGQu82p


Peter Schiff - Victims of government: The FDA's war against products of nature

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7PdO8yzXIQ


Peter Schiff - The Obama Administration (FDA) vs the Amish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QqIN9EfQwM

[iamgine]

[QUOTE]

Seriously, how stupid do you think people are? Why would a business man want to sell people poison? How does that make sense? Not only will his business not last long at all, but he'll be sued and lose everything he has. You can't just go selling products with poison in them.

Actually you can and it has happened. Frequently. All over the world.

Of course, this isn't poison that make you drop dead instantly.

[falc39]

I'm pretty conservative, but anyone who thinks we should get rid of the FDA just isn't reasonable. Even the case that was brought up makes sense. Giving out sperm without a disease check is something that shouldn't happen, even if it is some minister trying to be a good person. If all those 14 kids he had ended up diseased, people would freak the hell out. Are there probably some dumb things going on in the FDA? Yeah, but to get rid of a organization that is designed to protect people against bad drugs and poor sanitation in food is just not reasonable. Just by the fact that there are so many corners that could be cut that could save $ but would be awful for the public, the FDA needs to exist.

Really??? Do you realize this happens everyday? Except the people don't advertise. What are you going to do against them? Let's start the war on sex!!! It will turn out like all the successful wars the government waged, like on poverty, drugs, and terrorism...

[dunksby]

Not sure if the OP is serious? FDA is not some big brother organization put there by the government to make people's lives hell. Every country in the world has the same organization or something equal to it. If FDA is not doing a good job you should worry about reforming the organization not abolishing it.

[joe]

Not sure if the OP is serious? FDA is not some big brother organization put there by the government to make people's lives hell. Every country in the world has the same organization or something equal to it. If FDA is not doing a good job you should worry about reforming the organization not abolishing it.

I'm honestly shocked at how much trust and adoration people have for the FDA. Not saying you in particular. I honestly expected more mixed reactions, especially with some of the links I posted.

I always regret starting threads like this, because I realize how liberal this board is and it feels really strange being the only one defending something. At least Falc is popping in every now and then. ha.

Maybe abolish was a strong word. Perhaps, phased out, or at the very least heavily reformed. Btw, no government agency is created to make our lives a living hell. At least ostensibly. But you have to look at the actual effects of what the agencies do, not just their intended purpose.

[Sarcastic]

Not sure if the OP is serious? FDA is not some big brother organization put there by the government to make people's lives hell. Every country in the world has the same organization or something equal to it. If FDA is not doing a good job you should worry about reforming the organization not abolishing it.

OP thinks the government is pure evil.

[falc39]

I'm honestly shocked at how much trust and adoration people have for the FDA. Not saying you in particular. I honestly expected more mixed reactions, especially with some of the links I posted.

I always regret starting threads like this, because I realize how liberal this board is and it feels really strange being the only one defending something. At least Falc is popping in every now and then. ha.

Maybe abolish was a strong word. Perhaps, phased out, or at the very least heavily reformed. Btw, no government agency is created to make our lives a living hell. At least ostensibly. But you have to look at the actual effects of what the agencies do, not just their intended purpose.

I'm trying to spend the least amount of time in this thread because such a ridiculous notion shouldn't even be debated. It's one thing to argue that the FDA has some benefits, but I am more shocked that people are defending the FDA even with this specific example. Does no one see that giving sperm for free to someone when they consent and want it is the same thing as consensual sex? If you think that the FDA should be involved in that you are just flat out un-saveable at this point. The collective balls of mankind just shrunk a little... for real

[dunksby]

I'm trying to spend the least amount of time in this thread because such a ridiculous notion shouldn't even be debated. It's one thing to argue that the FDA has some benefits, but I am more shocked that people are defending the FDA even with this specific example. Does no one see that giving sperm for free to someone when they consent and want it is the same thing as consensual sex? If you think that the FDA should be involved in that you are just flat out un-saveable at this point. The collective balls of mankind just shrunk a little... for real
Do you use a condom when having sex? Or do you tell the girl its just a weapon the government employs for its war on sex?

[RidonKs]

I'm trying to spend the least amount of time in this thread because such a ridiculous notion shouldn't even be debated. It's one thing to argue that the FDA has some benefits, but I am more shocked that people are defending the FDA even with this specific example. Does no one see that giving sperm for free to someone when they consent and want it is the same thing as consensual sex? If you think that the FDA should be involved in that you are just flat out un-saveable at this point. The collective balls of mankind just shrunk a little... for real
lol, this is actually a good point. i dunno why i ignored it last night in this thread, but now that i think, the real difference between sex and gift wrapping your sperm is essentially negligible. in fact, it's safer besince cause the seed isn't just being pumped in, you can consciously decide when to inseminate. of course it's a really stupid thing for somebody to do, but with regards to sex, i'd also prefer to keep the government out of my business.

what about the question of prostitution though? say it's legalized in the near future. since a brothel sells sex, based on your argument above, no oversight would seem necessary since people are just 'doing as they do'. but clearly there are significant risks in having sex with an untested whore and a lot of people would probably get f*cked over. which makes me flip flop again and demand regulation.

what say you?

[falc39]

Do you use a condom when having sex? Or do you tell the girl its just a weapon the government employs for its war on sex?

Most of the time I do. A few times I choose not to. If I wanted a kid I obviously would not. Either way it was my personal decision and the govt has no business with my personal choices.

@RidonKs
Prostitution is a bit different from this example. This guy is doing it for free and has no business model (that I'm aware of).

I will prob write more later.. using smartphone at work and it's getting annoying

[dunksby]

Most of the time I do. A few times I choose not to. If I wanted a kid I obviously would not. Either way it was my personal decision and the govt has no business with my personal choices.

@RidonKs
Prostitution is a bit different from this example. This guy is doing it for free and has no business model (that I'm aware of).

I will prob write more later.. using smartphone at work and it's getting annoying
How retarded are you? Condoms are not merely for preventing pregnancy, their main purpose is now preventing STD's. I dont think anyone wants to get sick cause you think its your personal choice since it clearly is not.

[joe]

Not really on the topic of abolishing the FDA, but in regards to the sperm donor thing... After just doing a quick search out of curiosity, it only costs up to a few hundred bucks a vile. Now obviously it could take a few tries for the the insemination to work. But why wouldn't you pay a few hundred bucks for a sample you know is clean and you know the donor doesn't have a family history of medical problems and such. Why would you be cheap when it comes to making sure you have a healthy baby?

The answer is... we don't know. You don't know why people chose this guy over others. I don't know. And the FDA doesn't know.

This is an important part of Austrian economics (and laissez faire economics in general). We don't know why people act, all we know is that they act. We can't judge the rationale for their actions, because only they know. We can only judge what choice they made in the end. It's one of the biggest arguments against central economic planning. How could any one person or group truly know what millions of different individuals value? How can a bureaucracy in Washington make decisions for millions of people?

And dude, "only a few hundred bucks per vile?" And it may not even work every time? I don't know what kind of money you're making, but for a lot of people that is just too expensive.

Edit: Well, you're macho man, so I'm sure you still have some of that 90's wrestling money

[Kblaze8855]

[QUOTE]

You sound very biased against free markets. Why do you assume that a free market in medicine would automatically equal snake oil salesman? And then what are the bribe-accepting FDA bureaucrats? Angels?


If the free market is the best, most efficient distributor of resources, than it's the best, most efficient distributor of resources. That fact doesn't change depending on what you're selling. If you don't agree that the free market works best, why even have it in any market? If government regulators can do a better job of telling people what's best for them, why not have a Beach House and Mail Administration too?

I suppose you'll say because drugs are especially dangerous, and need more regulation. But if you think the free market is going to deliver the best, most awesome beach house.. why would it not deliver the best, safest pills?



I actually agree with you here, though I think you way overexaggerated with that 12 million number. If we got rid of the FDA, there probably would be a transition period where people didn't know which companies to trust. Some wouldn't be as good as others, and people would get sick. That's why I think a slow phase out of the FDA would be better than a cold turkey abolishment.

However, you're still assuming that due to the FDA, drug companies are being kept in check, and without it they'll run amok and try to kill people. There's a lot of evidence to show that the FDA is doing a very poor job of actually regulating the medicine. Instead they seem more focused on bothering regular people and giving favors to whoever is paying them the nicest bribe.



Dude, we don't know exactly if all vitamins work. We don't know what some of their true effects are. They still get sold. People buy them. Same with New Age medicine. Who says there has to be stone cold science behind every pill?

I think people are only this afraid of the market on message boards. In real life, people take chances with products all the time. You eat candy you've never heard of. Who knows what's in that? You wear shoes that might not be designed properly, maybe you could twist your ankle playing ball.

Seriously, how stupid do you think people are? Why would a business man want to sell people poison? How does that make sense? Not only will his business not last long at all, but he'll be sued and lose everything he has. You can't just go selling products with poison in them.

If you say your pill cures depression, and it doesn't, you'll either lose customers, or people will actually get a placebo effect out of it and it's a win-win. I'm not sure what you're so afraid of, honestly.


How about that person be.... you


That could really be one of the worst made arguments ive ever read. Its almost as if you dont want to be taken serious.

Why not have the person making sure a pill isnt gonna kill my kids be me? By...doing what? finding a monkey to give it to myself? breaking off a little chunk of the pill and giving it to my kids to see if they get sick? Take the pill myself and judge the results as my sick kid gets sicker?

Who says there needs to be science behind pills? Have you not met...humans? Do you know what kind of damage could be done if you could sell say....a pill you swear up and down prevents the contraction of STDs and makes pregnancy impossible when its nothing but sand wrapped in a candy coating? If you can advertise and sell 3 dollar bottles of childrens antibiotics that dont do anything...how many people will buy them when a doctor says the kid has an infection that must be stopped? Before its existed long enough for the market to out them?

You are flat out saying we need to let innocent people and their children take pills of nothing sold by crooks....and not just let it happen on the low...but sanction it and let it be marketed to do things it wont at the cost of the health and lives of the American people who take their garbage expecting a medical benefit. Because after a while the bad companies that spring up might go out of business?

And you say im biased against the free market?

The **** does that even mean? Not everything is politics. This isnt a free market issue.

Its saying....someone should stand in the way of a company being able to sell ground up newspaper clippings as an overnight cure for meningitis.

And you are talking about candy companies and saying we dont need any verified science or testing behind what we pump into our kids? this isnt the 1430s. We would like to live more than 35 years on average.

Really...a lot of the points you just made could probably be put out word for word to convince people that opponents of the FDA are idiots.

And im not even saying you are an idiot. Im saying you seem to be so politically motivated and anti...whatever it is you hate about "liberals" or....whatever you think makes people who believe we need to test drugs made of jellyfish venom before giving them to sickly babies....anti free market.

I dont know what you are thinking but for real...your words read to the American people might make the FDA even more supported.

The FDA or some similar agency in charge of these things will never be removed. Ever. And its not because of "liberals" or anything political.

Its because the lives that would be lost and ruined would number too high to justify the change. Especially among the poor who would be more likely to try some cheap backwoods pill claiming to do what the proven companies do.

Removing the FDA oversight would get people killed. Period. Perhaps a few. Perhaps a lot. Perhaps it would level out over time.

But im not telling people to give their kids pills of nothing until the market straightens it out after they have to buy a bunch of baby sized caskets for kids with jaundice who are givien medication that doesnt make them well.

You remove the rules and people to enforce them....crooks will sell garbage to the poor and not care.

If one additional child has to die its not worth it just because you hate "liberals" and want to make it a free market issue when it isnt.

[Rasheed1]

Imma fan of Ron Paul more so than any other politician. I want him to become president.. I think his idea to shut down the FED and stop all the imperial empire building through foreign policy is exactly what we need..

As far as some of the departments he would cut? I work in education and I know the department of education is a mess and a waste...

I cant say that we dont need an FDA.. We may need a different version of the department than what exists now, or even a smaller version, but we do need regulations there just like we will need them for the banks.

Regulations are needed to check GREED.. Greed is what keeps destroying our best ideas. Somebody finds a way to corrupt a perfectly good system for their own benefit..

We will need regulations to stem GREED whether it be in financial regulations or business.

We need to protect ourselves and our institutions from those who would corrupt them for own profit..

The good news is that once we kick the usurers out of power, we can figure out a sensible way forward by working together to rebuild all that was destroyed by nearly 100 years of currency devaluation

[joe]

[QUOTE=joe]


That could really be one of the worst made arguments ive ever read. Its almost as if you dont want to be taken serious.

Why not have the person making sure a pill isnt gonna kill my kids be me? By...doing what? finding a monkey to give it to myself? breaking off a little chunk of the pill and giving it to my kids to see if they get sick? Take the pill myself and judge the results as my sick kid gets sicker?

Who says there needs to be science behind pills? Have you not met...humans? Do you know what kind of damage could be done if you could sell say....a pill you swear up and down prevents the contraction of STDs and makes pregnancy impossible when its nothing but sand wrapped in a candy coating? If you can advertise and sell 3 dollar bottles of childrens antibiotics that dont do anything...how many people will buy them when a doctor says the kid has an infection that must be stopped? Before its existed long enough for the market to out them?

You are flat out saying we need to let innocent people and their children take pills of nothing sold by crooks....and not just let it happen on the low...but sanction it and let it be marketed to do things it wont at the cost of the health and lives of the American people who take their garbage expecting a medical benefit. Because after a while the bad companies that spring up might go out of business?

And you say im biased against the free market?

The **** does that even mean? Not everything is politics. This isnt a free market issue.

Its saying....someone should stand in the way of a company being able to sell ground up newspaper clippings as an overnight cure for meningitis.

And you are talking about candy companies and saying we dont need any verified science or testing behind what we pump into our kids? this isnt the 1430s. We would like to live more than 35 years on average.

Really...a lot of the points you just made could probably be put out word for word to convince people that opponents of the FDA are idiots.

And im not even saying you are an idiot. Im saying you seem to be so politically motivated and anti...whatever it is you hate about "liberals" or....whatever you think makes people who believe we need to test drugs made of jellyfish venom before giving them to sickly babies....anti free market.

I dont know what you are thinking but for real...your words read to the American people might make the FDA even more supported.

The FDA or some similar agency in charge of these things will never be removed. Ever. And its not because of "liberals" or anything political.

Its because the lives that would be lost and ruined would number too high to justify the change. Especially among the poor who would be more likely to try some cheap backwoods pill claiming to do what the proven companies do.

Removing the FDA oversight would get people killed. Period. Perhaps a few. Perhaps a lot. Perhaps it would level out over time.

But im not telling people to give their kids pills of nothing until the market straightens it out after they have to buy a bunch of baby sized caskets for kids with jaundice who are givien medication that doesnt make them well.

You remove the rules and people to enforce them....crooks will sell garbage to the poor and not care.

If one additional child has to die its not worth it just because you hate "liberals" and want to make it a free market issue when it isnt.

You think it's such a terrible argument because you're coming into the discussion with huge biases and not even looking at the other side. It is indeed a free market conversation. We're talking about whether to keep a regulatory agency, or get rid of it. The point is, do we want the free market regulations or the government regulations on the drug industry?

I've shown examples and linked to articles showing the corruption of the FDA. But you keep pretending that their mere presence is protecting your kids. What about when they take bribes to let medicine on the market that hasn't been thoroughly tested.. and people trust that medicine because it's
FDA approved? What about when they put smaller companies out of business with excess regulation, and leave us with only a few companies that are bribing them to approve their "backwoods pills?"

Look at the language you're using. "Pills sold by crooks." "Cheap backwoods pill." You stated that without the FDA there would be 12 million bodies in the streets. How much you've bought into the company line and propaganda is almost bewildering to see, coming from someone who writes such elegant basketball essays.


[QUOTE]
Again, just winning FDA approval doesn

[Rasheed1]

joe... there is no way in hell you are going to convince people to scrap a regulatory department because of free market issues...


its a bad argument....

if you wanna change it to cleanse it of corruption? thats a great idea.. Change some of its functions? reform it somehow? maybe those ideas could work..

the main point is that people need to be alot LESS ideologically rigid on these issues..

there are more ways forward than 'scrap it' or 'keep it as is' and people need to be more open to a wider range of possibilities

[JellyBean]

For every reason someone gives an example of why the FDA should be abolished, there are reasons why the FDA should not be abolished. Case in point, Snokist, a Yakima, Washington business that supplies $50 million per year in processed fruit, some of it to baby food companies and schools, has been "reprocessing" moldy applesauce for distribution. Or seafood companies who violate, for years, seafood haccp (hazard Analysis Critical Control Points) guidelines. So the FDA should not be abolished. They just need to hire inspectors that can go in and do their jobs. I mean there was a story awhile back where many seafood cokmpanies, something like 40 companies, where they were repeat offenders, many of which went 4 years or more between warning letters. So the FDA just needs to train more inspectors.

[rivers to gates]

Joe is not a very intelligent person. He is a right wing extremist and I'm not liberal by a long shot.

[Kblaze8855]

I dont think your points are awful and becuse im biased...towards...whatever you want t ocall common sense. I dont give a **** about your free market vs whatever issues. You have conservatives, liberals, and even a guy who worked with people making drugs all saying the FDA is needed. Because they have common sense.

You point out cases of the FDA doing the wrong thing. Or perhaps taking brbes. Whatever it is. All you have done is prove my point. In EVERY walk of life there is human corruption and a desire to take the short cut to goals.

Thats why the FDA is needed in the first place. Its no different than police. Police kill innocent people, take bribes, and hurt the people they are supposed to protect on a daily basis. But you have to be an idiot to conclude that the world doesnt need them.

Human greed and evils extending everywhere including the people in charge of limiting their ability to hurt others doesnt mean we need to remove the people trying to make the world a better safer place. If we didnt have the problems they are susceptible to in all humans we wouldnt need any regulations at all. We wouldnt need laws. Or the FDA to force some guy to test a mind altering drug over and over again.

People would do it without being forced if not for our nature.

But we are what we are. The FDA, police, and others who presume to protect the public will always have bad apples. And always be needed anyway. Because the very thing that makes some of them go bad is what makes them have to look over the shoulders of others.

You sound like a borderline nutjob telling people its their biases that wont let them see your truth.

You are not smarter than anyone far as I can tell. You are just spouting off your beliefs which dont matter and will never be taken serious because people wich common sense know that rules and the people who enforce them on these issues are there for a good reason.

If you give a guy the chance to **** over his fellow man for a dollar hes gonna do it. So try to keep him from having those chances. Especially when it concerns life and death like it does here.

Its as simple as that.

We wont need the FDA when we dont need police.

THe day human nature is to be selfless...we can get rid of the FDA and police. But that day is not today.

[KeylessEntry]

To me, a lot of these free market and capitalism arguments stopped making sense when we agreed to the bailouts. People say america is a capitalist country, but I thought capitalism was all about survival of a company based on their performance. In a capitalist society, if a corporation performs so poorly that they go completely bankrupt and fail, then they fail and they should go bankrupt. The whole idea of too big to fail goes directly against capitalism, capitalism doesnt work without winners and failures. The foundation of capitalism - "let the market decide who sinks and swims" makes zero sense when the government is going to go around and throw money at the sinkers.

A lot of these pro capitalism types also talk about how we need to end welfare. After all, in a capitalist society, why would you help people out when they can help themselves using our amazing free market? How is giving welfare (money) to someone who lost their job any different from giving subsidies (money) to a corporation that cant turn a profit without government assistance? I want to end welfare too, END CORPORATE WELFARE.

[RidonKs]

To me, a lot of these free market and capitalism arguments stopped making sense when we agreed to the bailouts. People say america is a capitalist country, but I thought capitalism was all about survival of a company based on their performance. In a capitalist society, if a corporation performs so poorly that they go completely bankrupt and fail, then they fail and they should go bankrupt. The whole idea of too big to fail goes directly against capitalism, capitalism doesnt work without winners and failures. The foundation of capitalism - "let the market decide who sinks and swims" makes zero sense when the government is going to go around and throw money at the sinkers.

A lot of these pro capitalism types also talk about how we need to end welfare. After all, in a capitalist society, why would you help people out when they can help themselves using our amazing free market? How is giving welfare (money) to someone who lost their job any different from giving subsidies (money) to a corporation that cant turn a profit without government assistance? I want to end welfare too, END CORPORATE WELFARE.
you're setting up a straw man, i doubt many of the pro-market folks in these threads are particularly fond of the corporate nanny state either

[falc39]

How retarded are you? Condoms are not merely for preventing pregnancy, their main purpose is now preventing STD's. I dont think anyone wants to get sick cause you think its your personal choice since it clearly is not.

Did I ever say that the only purpose of condoms was to prevent pregnancies? Obviously there are other reasons why I choose to use them but thought it was common sense enough that I didn't have to take the time to type them all out.

But to the point... It is my personal choice and the personal choice of the person I am with. It's laughable that I have to even argue this out. If it's not my personal choice then whose is it? The FDA? You? How about this... the next time I decide to "give my sperm" to someone or have unprotected sex, why don't you go call the FDA on me. Good luck on that. The whole idea of the FDA getting involved with two consenting adults is ridiculous and that's what this case boils down to. Even if the FDA wanted to regulate this kind of stuff on a large scale it couldn't. Doesn't even matter how much taxpayer money is wasted on it. You would need some incredible big brother type of government to pull it off and you would have a revolution by morning :roll:

But the fundamental question remains: How is this guy any different from the guy who ends up on Maury who fathered 8+ babies and doesn't know their names??? Where is the FDA then?

[KeylessEntry]

you're setting up a straw man, i doubt many of the pro-market folks in these threads are particularly fond of the corporate nanny state either

Yeah I should have been more clear that I wasnt trying to say that joe or any of the other anti govt types in this thread are pro bailout/subsidy or anything like that, my post was just a rant about the current state of the "free market" that I had been thinking about for a while. My frustration is targeted at mainstream republicans rather than libertarians and true conservatives.

[dunksby]

Did I ever say that the only purpose of condoms was to prevent pregnancies? Obviously there are other reasons why I choose to use them but thought it was common sense enough that I didn't have to take the time to type them all out.

But to the point... It is my personal choice and the personal choice of the person I am with. It's laughable that I have to even argue this out. If it's not my personal choice then whose is it? The FDA? You? How about this... the next time I decide to "give my sperm" to someone or have unprotected sex, why don't you go call the FDA on me. Good luck on that. The whole idea of the FDA getting involved with two consenting adults is ridiculous and that's what this case boils down to. Even if the FDA wanted to regulate this kind of stuff on a large scale it couldn't. Doesn't even matter how much taxpayer money is wasted on it. You would need some incredible big brother type of government to pull it off and you would have a revolution by morning :roll:

But the fundamental question remains: How is this guy any different from the guy who ends up on Maury who fathered 8+ babies and doesn't know their names??? Where is the FDA then?
So you are saying FDA should not try to prevent STD's spreading via sperm donation? I donno how you look at it, but it is idiotic and absurd.
PS: regarding the unprotected sex example, my point was that you can not decide on your own you dont want to use condoms, your partner should consent to it as well. A girl wanting to have consensual sex with you does not equal her consenting to an unprotected sex.

[Legend of Josh]

Why are food and drugs regulated by the same agency? I've always wondered that.

Consumption.

[vinsane01]

First of all why is the FOOD and DRUG administration concerned with semen? That rhetorical question in itself makes any favorable argument towards this fda function falter; unless of course if you consider sperms as natural occurring drugs or unless you feel the need for the fda to at least expand their role to include testing semen, which is ridiculous. Also, if the parties involved want the semen to be tested for any anomaly surely they can do it themselves; all they have to do is walk inside a clinic or hospital. Seriously, like falc39 has said, this is no different than having unprotected sex and blowing your load inside your woman.

But with that said, i dont think this particular example is all that great. Yes it's stupid but honestly it's a mundane example if you want to convince any liberal to change their minds. Right now im probably 'agnostic' to this particular branch of government while leaning towards a more libertarian view.

A couple questions though, since i dont think many people would want to consume products tested only by the same company who produced them; Could a private fda strive and become trusted as a government owned fda? Also if a privately owned fda exist, will it be less prone to corruption because of the competition or more prone because it's in the private sector? How is a privately owned fda vs a government owned fda, any different from a private package delivery services vs public postal services?

[Kblaze8855]

Me and a very very anti big government Ron Paul loving friend of mine(Military guy) were taling about the FDA so I found him this topic. He went in thinking we should get rid of it.

But not now.

Can you imagine what happens the first time a mass produced non FDA approved drug kills 20-30 kids in a month?

Everyone in congress who voted for it would be done. Nobody in congress would have the balls to stand up and fight for it once some little white kid dies and becomes the face of the opposition.

[DeuceWallaces]

I guess the OP doesn't Upton Sinclair much.

What a ridiculous idea.

[KevinNYC]

Thalidomide, a great example of why the FDA is necessary

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide


Thalidomide is a sedative drug introduced in the late 1950s that was used to treat morning sickness. It was sold from 1957 until 1961, when it was withdrawn after being found to be a cause of birth defects....
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, more than 10,000 children in 46 countries were born with deformities, such as phocomelia, as a consequence of thalidomide use.

What is Phocomelia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phocomelia)?


the symptoms of phocomelia syndrome are undeveloped limbs and absent pelvic bones; however, various abnormalities can occur to the limbs and bones.[8] Usually the upper limbs are not fully formed and sections of the “hands and arms may be missing.” Short arm bones, fused fingers, and missing thumbs will often occur. Legs and feet are also affected similarly to that of the arms in hands.

Back to Thalidomide


In the United Kingdom, the drug was licensed in 1958. Of the approximately 2,000 babies born with defects, 466 survived.

In Germany approximately 2,500 thalidomide babies were born.

What about the US?


In the United States, pharmacologist and M.D. Frances Oldham Kelsey refused Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for an application from the Richardson-Merrell company to market thalidomide, saying further studies were needed, which reduced the impact of thalidomide in United States patients.

If you google Thalidomide or Phocomelia in Google Images, you can see the horrific results, but I warn you the images are disturbing.

[brantonli]

There's one very strange idea going on here, and that is that somehow, if a government sets up a regulatory body, then that body must be 100% perfect. It is not and it cannot be, because it's run by things called humans. And somehow, the very odd idea that if something doesn't work, it must be abolished! Anybody ever heard of the word reform before? Is a place like the FDA corrupted? Porbably, just like any high level regulatory body. But does that mean every regulatory body should be gotten rid of? Hell no.



To the post below: isn't this one of the greatest problems of modern economics, information? We don't truly know if a drug is good or bad for us until society uses it, and by that time, its far too late, and this means we err on the side of caution.

But the problem is, how do you solve it? How can you introduce a market solution to safety? People always underestimate their chances of being hurt, and overestimate their beenfits, which seriously distorts the actual cost-benefit of drugs.

[Crystallas]

I share Milton Friedman's position on the FDA. Which is, it is reasonable to test for safety, but not efficacy. Which might be a surprise to you, joe, because this is one area that I disagree with Rothbard.

For every life saved by the FDA due to preventing a bad drug, the FDA has killed another by delaying a good drug from saving a sick person. The FDA has far too much over-reach, and we do need to transition towards far more market based solutions, as well as restore the doctor patient relationship.

[A globe-trotter]

I guess the OP doesn't Upton Sinclair much.

What a ridiculous idea.

:cheers:

[Kblaze8855]

"For every life saved by the FDA due to preventing a bad drug, the FDA has killed another by delaying a good drug from saving a sick person."

Unlikely. Just isnt the same number of chances to do harm because too many drugs exist with redundant purposes. How many drugs are the only way to treat a condition? Especially for deadly conditions? There just arent many conditions left that one current drug is gonna wipe away.

You will sell a lot more miracle cancer treatment drugs that dont help people than you would some alternate way to cure things we already have treatments for.

Peoples desperation will drive them to try anything. More danger there..

The FDA has not stopped polio from being wiped out and somehow in a matter of years AIDS went from a mystery that killed everyone to just...needing to take agang of pills and eat right.

Things that come alone to just change the world....get out. Its not like the FDA controls the earth. If a berry in bolivia cured all forms of cancer, heart disease, and mental disorder I suspect the world becomes aware of it and no agency is gonna hold it back. And even if it tried once it was found safe more people would be saved than people would be hurt by the waiting.

Long term its to the benefit of billions to be sure. Thousands may have to wait. But the greater good is in being sure if only for how much time is in front of us compared to people with conditions now.

[joe]

American citizens have Stockholm syndrome for the government. It's gross and creepy. No matter how much they screw you, you all say.. "thank you sir, may, I have another?

Without the wise FDA to keep us safe, evil capitalists would be selling us poison, and the dumb masses would just buy it because they're dumb. And democrats see themselves as superheroes who are saving the dumb population from the evil supervillain "the invisible hand," through the power of government action. *Pukes* (I'm puking mostly at the thought that I used to be one of these people!)

For Republicans it's the same story, just in terms of military intervention.

The FDA accomplishes nothing that the free market couldn't, and at the same time it is corporate welfare. They are the lapdogs of big pharma, and screw over small business.

Would unsafe drugs survive in a free market? No. So what is the point of the FDA?

[DeuceWallaces]

American citizens have Stockholm syndrome for the government. It's gross and creepy. No matter how much they screw you, you all say.. "thank you sir, may, I have another?

Without the wise FDA to keep us safe, evil capitalists would be selling us poison, and the dumb masses would just buy it because they're dumb. And democrats see themselves as superheroes who are saving the dumb population from the evil supervillain "the invisible hand," through the power of government action. *Pukes*

For Republicans it's the same story, just in terms of military intervention.

The FDA accomplishes nothing that the free market couldn't, and at the same time it is corporate welfare. They are the lapdogs of big pharma, and screw over small business.

Would unsafe drugs survive in a free market? No. So what is the point of the FDA?

Yes that is exactly what happened. Stop being such a ****ing moron.

[joe]

Yes that is exactly what happened. Stop being such a ****ing moron.

Explain to me how this differs from your position on the FDA:


Without the wise FDA to keep us safe, evil capitalists would be selling us poison, and the dumb masses would just buy it because they're dumb.

[RidonKs]

maybe it's because you just called an institution wise, a class of people evil, and everybody dumb... all in one sentence?

the mere fact that all the posers who usually agree with your general stance have all disagreed with you on this particular issue should at least be enough to make you pause... let alone the reasonable argumentation and the sorta kinda industry insider actually describing a specific instance that flies right in the face of your argument.

and yet you just keep on driving (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX0fVsCE92w)

(link is irrelevant to conversation but relevant to being f*cking awesome)

[joe]

maybe it's because you just called an institution wise, a class of people evil, and everybody dumb... all in one sentence?

That was a caricature of people like you Ridonks..a quite realistic one if I may say so myself :D

[Kblaze8855]

The fact that this guy thinks people who believe the FDA should exist are anti capitalism is just...amazing.

[RidonKs]

thanks for the clarification. allow me to rephrase it for accuracy.



Without the FDA to keep unsafe/placebo drugs off the market, self interested businessmen would be marketing them dishonestly at premium prices, and people would buy them because they're people.


you're on another planet i swear...

[joe]

maybe it's because you just called an institution wise, a class of people evil, and everybody dumb... all in one sentence?

the mere fact that all the posers who usually agree with your general stance have all disagreed with you on this particular issue should at least be enough to make you pause... let alone the reasonable argumentation and the sorta kinda industry insider actually describing a specific instance that flies right in the face of your argument.

and yet you just keep on driving (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX0fVsCE92w)

(link is irrelevant to conversation but relevant to being f*cking awesome)

Um, plenty of people do agree with me. Plenty of people way smarter than anybody on this forum (except for you, of course) agree with me.

A lot of people have pleasant interactions with regulators. I know, because every business owners I meet, I ask them. "How has your experience been with regulators?" Most don't mind them, and many think they're positive forces on their industry.

The problems with the FDA are mostly unseen. "Unintended consequences." The money that is going to the FDA, which could have been used for more productive things. The businesses that weren't able to start, because they couldn't afford the regulatory burden. The drugs that can't hit the market, that could have saved lives.

And just the general idea that we need the government to protect us from business at all turns. I mean.. I guess it's sort of... cute that you guys trust the government so much. But some of us are living in the real world and believe that mentality needs to be curbed.

[Kblaze8855]

Really...the idea that people wont buy aproduct that doesnt work is just being blind to the world too.

If products like enzyte worked do you think it would be hard to prove? Or that they wouldnt release extensive proof just to silence doubters?

Of course it doesnt work. But they canstrongly imply that it does with shady wording and sell it to millions by just mentioning that the FDA doesnt actually say it does anything.

But people dont buy products that dont work?

All you need is to say it works. People will buy it. And the first dead kid is going on abillboard and destroying the careers of everyone involved in the bill that let them sell his parents the garbage that killed him.

[RidonKs]

case in point?

http://www.2dayblog.com/images/2010/april/powerbalance_1.jpg

[Kblaze8855]

There are still people who eat ground up rhino horn for sexual reasons. Its pretty much hair.And they eat it for sexual vitality and all sorts of shit. But people wont buy products that dont work......

[joe]

The fact that this guy thinks people who believe the FDA should exist are anti capitalism is just...amazing.

The FDA is completely at odds with free-markets. They are polar opposites. To support both would be like supporting gay marriage and not supporting it at the same time. Ass backwards.

Now maybe you think, okay, I support free markets.. but maybe not totalllyyy free markets. Fine. I understand that there are degrees that people can support something. But there's a distinction to be made between supporting free markets, or supporting semi-regulated markets.

And I also think people like that are more confused than anything.

Either free markets work, or they don't work. To say they work in one industry but not another does not make any sense. The common argument is, well, when it comes to medicine, there are potentially fatal consequences, so we need the government to intervene. But if you truly believe in the market, you understand that free people will provide for their own safety better than the government.

Once you understand that the market works better than government, you realize that this applies to all industries. Not just some, not just a few, not just a couple. The same principles that make the market work in one area, make it work in another.

[RidonKs]

Um, plenty of people do agree with me.
i'm talking about on this forum

rasheed
crystallis
rivers
iamgine

these guys are very consistent in their libertarian platform, very staunch ron paul supporters who rarely deviate from the typical line of cutting back gov't intervention and giving more choice to the consumer.

and they have all disagreed with you on this one. even falc refused to actually give a stance and only agreed with the specific instance of fda interference you mentioned in the op, which i'll agree, is absurd if you view it in a particular light.


so forget your theoretical drivel for a second. nobody here will disagree with you on its logic... it's perfectly coherent from first premise to final conclusion. its problem is that it conveniently evades necessary and obvious truths that must fit into the equation somehow. you're ignoring factors that matter and instead of accounting for nuance, you're dismissing it and trying to apply your economic theory across the entire spectrum of human economic trade.

it's just silly. drugs and semen and chicken aren't the same as sweaters and books and decks of cards. pound that through your skull.

[joe]

i'm talking about on this forum

rasheed
crystallis
rivers
iamgine

these guys are very consistent in their libertarian platform, very staunch ron paul supporters who rarely deviate from the typical line of cutting back gov't intervention and giving more choice to the consumer.

and they have all disagreed with you on this one. even falc refused to actually give a stance and only agreed with the specific instance of fda interference you mentioned in the op, which i'll agree, is absurd if you view it in a particular light.


so forget your theoretical drivel for a second. nobody here will disagree with you on its logic... it's perfectly coherent from first premise to final conclusion. its problem is that it conveniently evades necessary and obvious truths that must fit into the equation somehow. you're ignoring factors that matter and instead of accounting for nuance, you're dismissing it and trying to apply your economic theory across the entire spectrum of human economic trade.

it's just silly. drugs and semen and chicken aren't the same as sweaters and books and decks of cards. pound that through your skull.

From my previous post:

Either free markets work, or they don't work. To say they work in one industry but not another does not make any sense. The common argument is, well, when it comes to medicine, there are potentially fatal consequences, so we need the government to intervene. But if you truly believe in the market, you understand that free people will provide for their own safety better than the government.

Once you understand that the market works better than government, you realize that this applies to all industries. Not just some, not just a few, not just a couple. The same principles that make the market work in one area, make it work in another.

The market is about people acting in their own self-interest. They won't suddenly stop doing that when it comes to medicine. And shady business practices won't suddenly stop being punished by the market when it comes to medicine. All the same principles of the market that make it work for technology, would make it work in medicine.

[RidonKs]

an obsession with principles is akin to an ignorance of reality. there has never been a devised theory that has successfully and comprehensively described its chosen topic of reality. your theory is no different.

the fact that you're unwilling to even consider that different industries work in different ways based on a myriad of factors is asinine

based on your understanding, the concept of externalities isn't just useless, it's completely fictional

[RidonKs]

:lol

to support both is actually more like supporting gay marriage and calling a f@g a f@g at the same time

[Kblaze8855]

Either free markets work, or they don't work. To say they work in one industry but not another does not make any sense. The common argument is, well, when it comes to medicine, there are potentially fatal consequences, so we need the government to intervene. But if you truly believe in the market, you understand that free people will provide for their own safety better than the government.

Once you understand that the market works better than government, you realize that this applies to all industries. Not just some, not just a few, not just a couple. The same principles that make the market work in one area, make it work in another.

The idea that a system working in one setting means it works in all without question 100% of the time is so absurd I wont bother explaining why. Nobody could read it and not see the obvious flaws.

Nobody.

Its the kind of plan that doesnt even merit discussion because its so outside the realm of common sense that its literally impossible for a society of half reasonable people to enact it.

So it would just be an argument over why what wont happen should or shouldnt.

Its not going to. The things you are saying...will not happen. Ever. Because at some point...people will stop and think.

So I leave you tocontinue arguing about it from apoint of view stemming from a world that only exists and only ever will exist in your head.

[joe]

an obsession with principles is akin to an ignorance of reality. there has never been a devised theory that has successfully and comprehensively described its chosen topic of reality. your theory is no different.

the fact that you're unwilling to even consider that different industries work in different ways based on a myriad of factors is asinine

based on your understanding, the concept of externalities isn't just useless, it's completely fictional

There has never been a devised theory that what? Sounds like some marijuana induced stumbling there. :D

You keep thinking about it in terms of different industries, but what you need to think about is human beings. It's not that different industries can't work in different ways, it's that human beings are the predictable ones.

1- Humans will act. They will make economic choices. Some will buy things, some will sell things, some will make things. Some will save, some will spend, some will be hermits and try to remove themselves from the system. But they will all act.

2- Human beings will always look out for their best interest. This doesn't mean that they can't make dumb decisions. It simply means, that humans, when not coerced or forced, will make decisions that they believe will improve their life in some way.

From just these two logical starting points, we can make a lot of conclusions about how free markets will operate. And we can see these things happening around us all day, every day.

When you truly understand the market, you realize that government can only make it worse by intervening. It doesn't matter what the market is, because when the government intervenes, it changes the way people behave.

[RidonKs]

theory fails when applied broadly and absolutely without accounting for nuance. it doesn't matter what the theory is, a specific scenario will eventually bring its downfall. this has been proven over and over again.

you have a theory. your theory is that in the economic realm, individuals should be free to market and to consume whatever the f*ck they want, with the only exception falling under the category of forced coercion. but if given free reign, capital will move in the direction of society's best interest. always.

this theory you espouse is among the greatest ever conceived. it has paved the road for more realized potential than the rest of history combined, and it is an amazing guideline to how we should live our lives with a political cousin equally worthy of praise.

but it has limits. all theories have limits.

you're an ideologue like any other, convinced of the logic but refusing to account for the practical reality. you mold disagreeable facts to fit into your box and when they're inconvenient enough, you ignore them. there are lots of people like you under every political banner you can imagine. but you're irrefutably one of them. check yourself.

[joe]

theory fails when applied broadly and absolutely without accounting for nuance. it doesn't matter what the theory is, a specific scenario will eventually bring its downfall. this has been proven over and over again.

you have a theory. your theory is that in the economic realm, individuals should be free to market and to consume whatever the f*ck they want, with the only exception falling under the category of forced coercion. but if given free reign, capital will move in the direction of society's best interest. always.

this theory you espouse is among the greatest ever conceived. it has paved the road for more realized potential than the rest of history combined, and it is an amazing guideline to how we should live our lives with a political cousin equally worthy of praise.

but it has limits. all theories have limits.

you're an ideologue like any other, convinced of the logic but refusing to account for the practical reality. you mold disagreeable facts to fit into your box and when they're inconvenient enough, you ignore them. there are lots of people like you under every political banner you can imagine. but you're irrefutably one of them. check yourself.

The only foolish thing going on here, is one person sees a system that works 99% of the time.. and is calling me an ideologue for suggesting that, hey, maybe it also works that other 1%.

I don't think the free market is a perfect system, but I do think it's the best system. I really would like you to find a fact that I am ignoring.

Our government is really doing a good job with the health care market, huh? Skyrocketing prices, millions dependent on government programs for care, millions more with no insurance at all. People flying to India to get surgeries done.

[tpols]

2- Human beings will always look out for their best interest. This doesn't mean that they can't make dumb decisions. It simply means, that humans, when not coerced or forced, will make decisions that they believe will improve their life in some way.


The free market as it is depends on tastes and preferences. People buy what they like.. they buy certain cars, houses, entertainment objects, etc. All of these tastes are opinion based.

When it comes to drugs, it's about facts. You dont say hmmm, I think I'll like this one or I think I'll try that one. You have to have knowledge that people spend their whole lives developing in order to know what medicine will treat what disorder. Then you have to figure out how that medicine interacts with other drugs so that no ones mixing things into a deadly combo. It's not something the average person would be able to research.

It takes 1000x more time for an everyday consumer to correctly choose what is right for him[without him making the wrong choice and getting fvcked up] than it would be for him to pick out his next videogame.

[RidonKs]

I really would like you to find a fact that I am ignoring.
that choosing your cereal and choosing your cancer medication involves the same decision-making process

[joe]

that choosing your cereal and choosing your cancer medication involves the same decision-making process

Does it not? Explain the difference

[RidonKs]

"hmm, never tried these honey flavoured cheerios... maybe i'll give em a shot, what's the worst that could happen?"

"hmm, never tried this didraxodryl... maybe i'll give it a shot, what's the worst that could happen?"



#notsureifserious

[joe]

The free market as it is depends on tastes and preferences. People buy what they like.. they buy certain cars, houses, entertainment objects, etc. All of these tastes are opinion based.

When it comes to drugs, it's about facts. You dont say hmmm, I think I'll like this one or I think I'll try that one. You have to have knowledge that people spend their whole lives developing in order to know what medicine will treat what disorder. Then you have to figure out how that medicine interacts with other drugs so that no ones mixing things into a deadly combo. It's not something the average person would be able to research.

It takes 1000x more time for an everyday consumer to correctly choose what is right for him[without him making the wrong choice and getting fvcked up] than it would be for him to pick out his next videogame.

Appreciate the thoughtful response.

When you were born, what did you know about Advil? What did you think about Toyota? When you were 5 years old, did you have a solid opinion on Pepsi Vs Coke? Did you have a thorough understanding of the dangers of alcohol and cigarettes?

Of course not. You were only a kid. How could you know?

But yet, somehow, you now have an opinion on all of these things.

The argument being made, is that health is somehow different from these categories. Because bad health decisions could kill you, or because it's more complex. But somehow, we all trust that Pepsi isn't poison. We all realize the danger of alcohol. Some of us hate Toyota, some of us love them. How did we arrive at those conclusions, things that are extremely complex in their own right?

The answer is, the market. Some companies build trust over time, and gain a great reputation. Our friends tell us what to try, and what not to try. We can talk to others who have tried products that we are considering. We can read reviews.

In every single market, people do these things. Why? Because people are self-interested, and are out to get the best deal. This circumstance would not magically change when it came to health care. If we didn't all assume the FDA was taking care of us, which it's not. (http://www.cancure.org/medical_errors.htm)

Just look at what we have today. The health care industry has huge government interference (only surpassed by the bank and financial industries in America). Yet we have high prices, and still huge amounts of people die every year in hospitals. Is this the system that we're supposed to take over the freedom to make our own decisions?

[joe]

"hmm, never tried these honey flavoured cheerios... maybe i'll give em a shot, what's the worst that could happen?"

"hmm, never tried this didraxodryl... maybe i'll give it a shot, what's the worst that could happen?"



#notsureifserious

Why do you give people so little credit? Jeez, it must be depressing to think human beings are all such retarded little children. (Yet, paradoxically, think the government is full of wise servants who always know what's best.)

A free market in both cereal and in health care would sound like this:

"hmm, never tried these honey flavoured cheerios... maybe i'll give em a shot, what's the worst that could happen?"

"hmm, never tried this didraxodryl... maybe I'll ask the pharmacist his opinion. Maybe I'll ask my friend, who has tried it, her opinion. Maybe I'll go online and read reviews. Maybe I'll buy a brand that I already know and trust."

But no... people would just spend 8 bucks on some pills they've never heard of before, and probably be poisoned in the process, if it wasn't for our wise overlords at the FDA. amirite?

[IcanzIIravor]

Appreciate the thoughtful response.

When you were born, what did you know about Advil? What did you think about Toyota? When you were 5 years old, did you have a solid opinion on Pepsi Vs Coke? Did you have a thorough understanding of the dangers of alcohol and cigarettes?

Of course not. You were only a kid. How could you know?

But yet, somehow, you now have an opinion on all of these things.

The argument being made, is that health is somehow different from these categories. Because bad health decisions could kill you, or because it's more complex. But somehow, we all trust that Pepsi isn't poison. We all realize the danger of alcohol. Some of us hate Toyota, some of us love them. How did we arrive at those conclusions, things that are extremely complex in their own right?

The answer is, the market. Some companies build trust over time, and gain a great reputation. Our friends tell us what to try, and what not to try. We can talk to others who have tried products that we are considering. We can read reviews.

In every single market, people do these things. Why? Because people are self-interested, and are out to get the best deal. This circumstance would not magically change when it came to health care. If we didn't all assume the FDA was taking care of us, which it's not. (http://www.cancure.org/medical_errors.htm)

Just look at what we have today. The health care industry has huge government interference (only surpassed by the bank and financial industries in America). Yet we have high prices, and still huge amounts of people die every year in hospitals. Is this the system that we're supposed to take over the freedom to make our own decisions?

These government agencies came about for a reason. You sound pretty knowledgeable on the subject so I know you realize why they came about. Given this reason what makes you think industry will be able to police itself without such agencies and regulations. Pure capitalism seems to be a recipe for disaster. I can see wanting the FDA to be streamlined and reformed, but doing away with it entirely is applying far too much faith in companies that are investing millions if not billions into drugs, new food products and other things in hopes of making a huge profit off their investments.

[joe]

These government agencies came about for a reason. You sound pretty knowledgeable on the subject so I know you realize why they came about. Given this reason what makes you think industry will be able to police itself without such agencies and regulations. Pure capitalism seems to be a recipe for disaster. I can see wanting the FDA to be streamlined and reformed, but doing away with it entirely is applying far too much faith in companies that are investing millions if not billions into drugs, new food products and other things in hopes of making a huge profit off their investments.

Appreciate that you think I sound knowledgeable, I don't believe many who disagree with me on here have given me compliments. Ha! Although maybe you think I simply sound knowledgeable on a whole lot of dumb crap, aye? Either way thx for being nice :-p

I'd question why these agencies came about. We all know the narrative we're supposed to believe, which is that the market was utterly failing, killing its customers, and feeding us rats.. and then the government came along to save the day. That's pretty much what we're told about everything the government does. Similar to Obamacare. If Obamacare is still around in 100 years, people will say its purpose was to save the American people from the high prices and low standards of the free market (which we already hear today.) Nobody will remember that the big pharmaceutical companies stand to benefit from it, or that they lobbied for it. Or that we didn't even have a free market in health care to begin with.

In a free market, industries do not police themselves. They are policed by the regulations of the market. If your prices are high, you lose. If your quality is low, you lose. If you kill your customers, you lose. You lose all of the money you invested, all of the time you invested, and you go bankrupt. This idea that unregulated capitalism would be some madhouse of out of control businessmen just doesn't stand up to logic and reason. Like you said, they want to make a profit. You don't do that by killing your customers.

People always talk about "greed" in capitalism, but they never talk about its counterweight.. fear. People want to make money, but they're also scared to lose it. This natural law regulates the market better than any government agency can. Government agencies, in fact, often removes fear from the equation, leaving unfettered greed in the market place. Why were banks so reckless with our money during the housing bubble? Because the government guaranteed that any losses they made would be restored by the government. No fear of losing money, equals reckless behavior. The free market would never allow such behavior like we saw in the housing bubble.

Free markets regulate themselves more strictly than the government. When the government intervenes, it invariably twists around peoples incentives, and destroys the natural laws of the market.

[tpols]

Appreciate the thoughtful response.

When you were born, what did you know about Advil? What did you think about Toyota? When you were 5 years old, did you have a solid opinion on Pepsi Vs Coke? Did you have a thorough understanding of the dangers of alcohol and cigarettes?

Of course not. You were only a kid. How could you know?

But yet, somehow, you now have an opinion on all of these things.

The argument being made, is that health is somehow different from these categories. Because bad health decisions could kill you, or because it's more complex. But somehow, we all trust that Pepsi isn't poison. We all realize the danger of alcohol. Some of us hate Toyota, some of us love them. How did we arrive at those conclusions, things that are extremely complex in their own right?

The answer is, the market. Some companies build trust over time, and gain a great reputation. Our friends tell us what to try, and what not to try. We can talk to others who have tried products that we are considering. We can read reviews.

In every single market, people do these things. Why? Because people are self-interested, and are out to get the best deal. This circumstance would not magically change when it came to health care. If we didn't all assume the FDA was taking care of us, which it's not. (http://www.cancure.org/medical_errors.htm)

Just look at what we have today. The health care industry has huge government interference (only surpassed by the bank and financial industries in America). Yet we have high prices, and still huge amounts of people die every year in hospitals. Is this the system that we're supposed to take over the freedom to make our own decisions?
I see what you're saying.. it takes a long time to find out what is and what isnt good for you and make decisions regardless.

But Pepsi.. and Toyota.. and whatever else dont have the consequences that drugs can. It's why car companies get safety checks and ratings on their products. Now that I think about it though I guess that would be a healthy alternative to the FDA.. private companies that scale the safety rating of your drug. Companies would be sure to have their product be safe because people wouldn't buy the low rated drugs if they had the choice. Everyone would want the 5 star safety label on theirs.

You cant just get rid of the testing though.. these drugs have the power to fvck up whole generations of people. It's not even as bad as just killing a bunch of people.. like someone else showed already they can mutate genes and have crazy long term effects.

[joe]

I see what you're saying.. it takes a long time to find out what is and what isnt good for you and make decisions regardless.

But Pepsi.. and Toyota.. and whatever else dont have the consequences that drugs can. It's why car companies get safety checks and ratings on their products. Now that I think about it though I guess that would be a healthy alternative to the FDA.. private companies that scale the safety rating of your drug. Companies would be sure to have their product be safe because people wouldn't buy the low rated drugs if they had the choice. Everyone would want the 5 star safety label on theirs.

You cant just get rid of the testing though.. these drugs have the power to fvck up whole generations of people. It's not even as bad as just killing a bunch of people.. like someone else showed already they can mutate genes and have crazy long term effects.

I'm glad my point was well taken. I think if the FDA strictly did testing, it'd be better than if it had the power to write regulations.

Something to keep in mind, is that whenever you give the government power.. big corporations will look to take advantage of that power. Not just because they're bad people (though many of these types are), but because it's simply in their best interest to do so. If they don't, their competitors will.

Think about the FDA as it's currently structured. It can not only test products, but write regulations as well. Now put yourself in the shoes of a Big Pharma CEO. If you simply pay off these FDA people, they can write regulations that you can afford, but that your smaller competitors can't. This can artificially put your competitors out of business, and allow you to charge more for your products than the market would have allowed. If you DON'T try to do this, your competitors will, and will have a huge advantage. It's like the steroid era in baseball. Some players maybe didn't want the steroids, but if they didn't use them, they might lose their job to the guy that is.

So think about an FDA that strictly does testing. How might a CEO take advantage of that? They can make sure their drugs get passed quickly. They can try to delay their competitors drugs. They can try to get drugs denied that are perfectly safe.

The difference between the government and the free market, is that governments employ the use of force. If you don't do what they say, you go to jail. In a free market, everything must be done voluntarily. So when you give an institution the legal right to use force.. and then give that institution a whole lot of power.. it's obvious what is going to happen. Bad people will try to use the governments force to their advantage.

[Nanners]

i think the whole idea of the free market kind of falls apart when it comes to health care and pharmaceuticals. first of all, healthcare should not be a profit driven industry. look around the world and the USA is the ONLY developed country with a profit based health care system.

also, pharmaceuticals and other new and synthetic chemicals need to be tested and regulated. its only a matter of time before we are living out the plot to children of men, where everyone goes sterile because some new synthetic chemical or something that leeched in to the water supply from agriculture or whatever.

[Crystallas]

"hmm, never tried these honey flavoured cheerios... maybe i'll give em a shot, what's the worst that could happen?"

"hmm, never tried this didraxodryl... maybe i'll give it a shot, what's the worst that could happen?"



#notsureifserious

"hmm, FDA didn't ban bleach, maybe i'll give it a shot and drink a gallon, what's the worst that can happen?"

"hmm, FDA approved ambien for OTC, I guess i'ma stock up and see how much I can eat before I fall asleep? "

#howsillycanyouget

[Crystallas]

i think the whole idea of the free market kind of falls apart when it comes to health care and pharmaceuticals. first of all, healthcare should not be a profit driven industry. look around the world and the USA is the ONLY developed country with a profit based health care system.

also, pharmaceuticals and other new and synthetic chemicals need to be tested and regulated. its only a matter of time before we are living out the plot to children of men, where everyone goes sterile because some new synthetic chemical or something that leeched in to the water supply from agriculture or whatever.

The free market is a lot stricter at regulating and preventing such things from happening. It's about results, not just legislation and middle men driven by their own profit motive that work for/or lobby the government in some form. If you want safer water supplies, a cleaner environment, better quality products, better safety, then you want as much of a free market as possible. If you want to just control what is good and bad, make a lot of bad judgments and mistakes, then a centrally planned solution is for you(plus it looks excellent on paper.)

[DeuceWallaces]

Explain to me how this differs from your position on the FDA:

Because that is exactly what happened. Your stance is idiotic and exists only in some weird right wing or libertarian ideology. Do you have any sense of recent history? Jesus, go read The Jungle or something similar. Your stance is completely retarded and in no way based in reality.

You sound like a high school dropout who reads Ron Paul websites all day and then comes to a basketball forum to flesh out your idiotic and poorly conceived notions of politics, economics, and bureaucracy.

There are a lot of areas prime for Federal cutbacks (i.e. the military) but this is not one of them. Corporations selling food and drugs have very little concern for our welfare. There is a long historical precedent for this. I suggest you familiarize yourself with it before you go to a basketball website and try to be a cool-smart-contrarian.

[IcanzIIravor]

The free market is a lot stricter at regulating and preventing such things from happening. It's about results, not just legislation and middle men driven by their own profit motive that work for/or lobby the government in some form. If you want safer water supplies, a cleaner environment, better quality products, better safety, then you want as much of a free market as possible. If you want to just control what is good and bad, make a lot of bad judgments and mistakes, then a centrally planned solution is for you(plus it looks excellent on paper.)

This flies in the face of what happened in the USA prior to the movement that led to eventual creation of the FDA. Look at what happened in the US in the late 1800's to the early 1900's and the various products that floated around causing great harm to hundreds and thousands. I'm all for reforming the FDA and stream lining it, but I think it is crazy to want to get rid of it and just let companies police themselves.

[N0Skillz]

:hammerhead:

[Bosnian Sajo]

maybe it's because you just called an institution wise, a class of people evil, and everybody dumb... all in one sentence?

the mere fact that all the posers who usually agree with your general stance have all disagreed with you on this particular issue should at least be enough to make you pause... let alone the reasonable argumentation and the sorta kinda industry insider actually describing a specific instance that flies right in the face of your argument.

and yet you just keep on driving (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX0fVsCE92w)

(link is irrelevant to conversation but relevant to being f*cking awesome)

What the **** is this shit? Please don't tell me you actually listen to that..mess. :facepalm

[joe]

I just deleted my response to DueceWallaces because I feel I've explained the free market to the best of my ability already in this thread. Further explanations would just be redundant and not as useful.

[Jailblazers7]

From my previous post:

Either free markets work, or they don't work. To say they work in one industry but not another does not make any sense. The common argument is, well, when it comes to medicine, there are potentially fatal consequences, so we need the government to intervene. But if you truly believe in the market, you understand that free people will provide for their own safety better than the government.

Once you understand that the market works better than government, you realize that this applies to all industries. Not just some, not just a few, not just a couple. The same principles that make the market work in one area, make it work in another.

The market is about people acting in their own self-interest. They won't suddenly stop doing that when it comes to medicine. And shady business practices won't suddenly stop being punished by the market when it comes to medicine. All the same principles of the market that make it work for technology, would make it work in medicine.

Economics wouldn't exist as a discipline if markets either always worked or never worked.

[dunksby]

http://www.auricenergyhealing.com/
http://iithealthstore.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=3
/thread

[KevinNYC]

Joe, I would love you responded to my post about Thalidomide.

A company created a drug that led to babies being born with defects in their arms and legs or no arms or legs. The FDA minimized that catostrophe in this country.

[Nanners]

when health is involved, the free market can go screw itself. big pharma, the health insurance companies, and the entire health care institution dont give a fvck about making people healthy, they only care about getting paid.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/antipsychotic-drugs-grow-more-popular-for-patients-without-mental-illness/2012/02/02/gIQAH1yz7R_print.html

joe you can take that article to your dad or whoever it is that is giving you this "free market is the answer to every one of life's problems" nonsense

[DeuceWallaces]

Joe, I would love you responded to my post about Thalidomide.

A company created a drug that led to babies being born with defects in their arms and legs or no arms or legs. The FDA minimized that catostrophe in this country.

He can't. All he has are libertarian talking points which balk at real world examples and extensive historical precedents.

We're just being trolled by a clueless ideologue.

[Crystallas]

This flies in the face of what happened in the USA prior to the movement that led to eventual creation of the FDA. Look at what happened in the US in the late 1800's to the early 1900's and the various products that floated around causing great harm to hundreds and thousands. I'm all for reforming the FDA and stream lining it, but I think it is crazy to want to get rid of it and just let companies police themselves.

But companies don't just police themselves. Why do people counter free market arguments, with this assumption of going all anarchism? You do realize that libertarianism strongly supports infrastructure that is endorsed by the people. And like I said, stricter and more accurate regulations than anything the government can provide.

People need to ask themselves, why do some businesses knowingly take dangerous risks? The answer could never be, because a regulatory agency has banned a safer method... noo, never. The saints that work at those agencies, they would never do such a thing... Oh wait, they are all bought and paid for, and most of the regulations are written by companies. So in reality, right now companies police themselves, and we(free market libertarians) are advocating for taking that power away from companies, and giving power back to the people that can do far more to improve the market, than the time-old corrupted regulatory agency.

The FDA has caused just as many deaths as it has saved lives, plus we have to pay to keep them running. If a private business would do this, they would go bankrupt. Gr

[joe]

Economics wouldn't exist as a discipline if markets either always worked or never worked.

I don't agree with this. The problem isn't that free markets don't work 100% of the time, thus there's an economics profession. The problem is there's no way to definitively prove what systems work and what don't. And even if the facts back you up, the very basis of what is considered successful and unsuccessful can be brought into question.

Economics is a social science, and everyone is throwing around subjective opinions. The facts say free market societies have done really well, but some think they'd be total disasters in practice. But when I say they've done really well, what do I mean by that? Perhaps what I define as really well, other people define as wrong. Such as, free market leads to high degrees of material products. I think that's awesome, a socialist might think it's morally repugnant. Who's right?

Let alone the problem of isolating variables, or creating controlled situations. I can say America's weak economy is a failure of socialist policies, but a socialist could say it's a result of free market policies. Both socialist and market policies exist in America's system, so how do we isolate them to figure out what is causing the problems? We can't. Then Keynesians come along and say we need lower interest rates. Then neo-cons say we just need another war. Who is right? Who is wrong?

We can look at history, but that's dicey as well. History becomes lost, distorted, and changed over time. Cause and effect becomes blurred. I say the depression ended because the government finally CUT spending in 1946. Liberals feel it ended because the government spent more, with the New Deal and World War 2. Who's right? How can we know?

Economics is so subjective. Even if one system was "the best," we'd never know it because people have differing opinions. And we can't even decide what makes a system "best" in the first place.

[Crystallas]

Then Keynesians come along and say we need lower interest rates.

You described one of the fundamental differences between Keynesian and NeoKeynesian economics. The NeoKeynesians support artificially low interest rates, Keynesians don't necessarily, but they can(however, right now we wouldn't have low interest rates according to Keynes theory, we would be both raising taxes temporarily and allowing interest rates to go up). Sorry, just had to clarify. I know, I'm correcting you over semantics, but if you ignore macro, you only have 1 part of the equation. Just like if you ignore micro, you also are just as flawed. These details are critical.

[Jailblazers7]

Markets can't be proven to work 100% of the time because they don't work 100% of the time. The lack of complete solution arises because one doesn't exist.

[IcanzIIravor]

[QUOTE=Crystallas]But companies don't just police themselves. Why do people counter free market arguments, with this assumption of going all anarchism? You do realize that libertarianism strongly supports infrastructure that is endorsed by the people. And like I said, stricter and more accurate regulations than anything the government can provide.

People need to ask themselves, why do some businesses knowingly take dangerous risks? The answer could never be, because a regulatory agency has banned a safer method... noo, never. The saints that work at those agencies, they would never do such a thing... Oh wait, they are all bought and paid for, and most of the regulations are written by companies. So in reality, right now companies police themselves, and we(free market libertarians) are advocating for taking that power away from companies, and giving power back to the people that can do far more to improve the market, than the time-old corrupted regulatory agency.

The FDA has caused just as many deaths as it has saved lives, plus we have to pay to keep them running. If a private business would do this, they would go bankrupt. Gr

[joe]

Joe, I would love you responded to my post about Thalidomide.

A company created a drug that led to babies being born with defects in their arms and legs or no arms or legs. The FDA minimized that catostrophe in this country.

I didn't read your post because I'm too lazy to find it, but I read the wikipedia instead.

Okay, so the FDA didn't approve this drug, but US citizens were getting it under the table. Then an estimated 10 to 20 thousand people were born with birth defects worldwide, linked to this drug. The FDA helped minimize the catastrophe in the US. All well and good.

But nobody, not even me, is saying that the FDA doesn't occasionally do some good. I bet they've saved quite a few lives from keeping dangerous drugs off the market.

My argument is simply this. How many deaths have they caused by taking too long to approve medicine? How many companies and jobs did they destroy with burdensome regulations? How much higher is the price of pills because of their involvement? And most importantly, my argument is that the free market would handle this all 100% better.

What my argument is not, is to say that nobody would die from products in a free market. They would.

But we need some perspective here.

Take a guess. How many people do you think died from FDA approved drugs in 2010? 10 thousand? 20 thousand?

82,724.

http://i43.tinypic.com/2d2g66g.jpg

http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/GuidanceComplianceRegulatoryInformation/Surveillance/AdverseDrugEffects/ucm070461.htm

And you see that blue bar? Those are considered "serious" situations involving FDA approved drugs. "Serious" defined as: death, hospitalization, life-threatening, disability, congenital anomaly and/or other serious outcome.

471,291 of those in 2010. And these numbers have been rising steadily every year for the most part.

Granted, a lot of these deaths are from drug abuse. But that begs the question. Why are these drugs so addictive? Why are they so bad for us? Why are the side effects so crazy (Ask your doctor if you have suicidal thoughts, increased need to gamble, or pain in your liver!)? Why are so many people being killed or hurt by them?

You might say, well, these pills are just SO dangerous... if we didn't have the FDA, we'd be stepping over bodies in the streets. I guess I can't really counter that argument. I can, by saying the free market would produce better quality drugs than this government pill cartel we currently have. And many would be using the much safer medical marjuana in a free society. But you won't care for that argument, I'm sure.

But clearly not everything is honkey dorey with our current system. Whether you think the free market is the solution or not, something stinks with what we have right now.

[joe]

[QUOTE]Why prescription drugs are so expensive, and what to do about it

by Durk Pearson & Sandy Shaw

We can think of four main reasons that prescription drugs are expensive:

1. The FDA. The agency prevents competition between prescription drugs and less expensive dietary supplements that may be able to provide similar benefits with lower risks of adverse effects and side effects—for example, finasteride vs. Saw Palmetto to treat benign prostatic hypertrophy. The FDA blocks competition by refusing to approve health claims for dietary supplements and fighting the free speech rights (to provide truthful health information) of dietary supplement companies to inform consumers who use supplements and want such information.

We (along with the American Preventive Medical Association, which joined us as coplaintiff and helped pay the legal bills) won a landmark court decision in Pearson vs. Shalala (U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, 15 January l999). The court ruled that the FDA's prohibition of truthful, nonmisleading health claims for dietary supplements was unconstitutional and that, even if the level of scientific support for a claim did not meet an FDA-defined standard, the agency would have to approve the claim and provide a disclaimer that would prevent any potential to mislead the public. After spending some $200,000 to get that great win, the FDA has openly refused to comply with the court's ruling, continuing to suppress the four truthful claims at issue (as well as many others). The money wasn't wasted, however, as we continue to pursue the FDA with further legal action intended to bring the agency to heel. See www.emord.com for all the action, including briefs and oral arguments, court decisions, etc. And if the FDA's arrogant actions infuriate you as much as they do us, please consider sending a donation to support the case. Make your check out to the Pearson & Shaw Litigation Fund and send to Emord & Associates, 5282 Lyngate Court, Burke, VA 22015. Thanks!

2. The FDA. The agency disallows the importation of FDA-approved prescription drugs manufactured by FDA-approved facilities in other countries, except by the drug manufacturers. Recent bills by Congress may order the FDA to discontinue that practice, although (as we have seen in the FDA's abrogation of free speech rights in the case of dietary supplement health claims) they may simply refuse to obey Congress. It is up to Congress to punish the FDA for failing to obey congressional statute, such as by reducing the FDA's budget.

3. The FDA. The cost of getting approval for a single new drug
entity has now reached about $500,000,000. Only large pharmaceutical companies can afford to spend that sort of money, even with a period of market monopolization through patents within which to recover their money and get a reasonable return on their investment. Approval costs are far higher here than in other advanced countries.

Getting approval costs down by, for example, reducing the FDA's authority to overseeing just safety, rather than overseeing both safety and efficacy, is one way to dramatically reduce drug costs, as well as to increase our access to many useful treatments that otherwise never reach the market due to these high costs. Let freely interacting scientists, doctors and patients determine relative efficacy in the only way that it matters—in competition with other treatments of individual patients, whose response to a drug may vary widely.

4. The FDA. The system of patented protection of pharmaceutical drugs now includes dangerous provisions whereby the FDA can, for whatever reason it likes (though supposedly to make up for FDA delays in approval), extend (or not) the patent rights on prescription drugs by six months to three years. This has greatly expanded its power (because, for popular drugs, we are talking about billions of dollars in monopoly market rents each year) and fosters the corruption of FDA officials by creating a bribery incentive for pharmaceutical companies to try to get those extended patents and for generic drug companies to try to get the FDA not to grant them. Recently, for example, there was a battle over the right to offer generic versions of the very expensive Prozac

[joe]

You have something factual that supports this quote? I am sure you understand the history that led up to the FDA's creation right? Given that knowledge I can't fathom why you think doing away with the FDA would be a good thing for the country.

http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2001/feb2001_awsi.html


Today's system for evaluating new cancer drugs is seriously flawed. Promising therapies linger at the FDA, while cancer patients suffer excruciating deaths using toxic treatments that were long ago proven to fail.

One hurdle that denies cancer patients access to better therapies is the FDA's insistence that experimental drugs be used by themselves, even though the actual science indicates that a multi-modal approach offers a better chance of success.

The ultimate solution to curing cancer is to abolish FDA regulatory authority over medicines. Regrettably, this is not a political reality, as those with vested financial interests will spend tens of millions of dollars to deceive Congress into believing that the FDA is needed to “protect” Americans against bogus cancer products.

To make their argument, FDA-proponents point to charlatans who promote cancer products that are obviously fraudulent. What these FDA-supporters ignore are potential life-saving drugs such as Endostatin, Angiostatin and Iressa50 that remain bogged down in FDA red tape while 1500 Americans die of cancer every day.


http://www.isil.org/resources/lit/death-regulation.html


Have you lost a loved one to breast cancer recently? If so, you probably wished with all your heart that your sister, mother, or wife had detected it earlier. Perhaps they would have - if the device that clinicians are calling "one of the most effective weapons against breast cancer" hadn't been banned from the US market by the FDA.

The Sensor Pad, developed in Decatur, Illinois, is simply two sealed plastic sheets with lubricant in between. When a woman or her doctor places the pad over her breast, friction is reduced, making lump detection easier. The FDA has refused to approve this simple medical device for over a decade, even though the product is sold in Japan, Singapore, Korea, and most West European countries. The reason? The FDA wants this $7 device to go through the same testing procedures that it demands for expensive pharmaceuticals. After such testing, the FDA will take up to six years to decide whether or not the device should be approved. Because drug manufacturers are required to spend much more time and money getting US approvals than offshore ones, Americans get new, life-saving drugs and devices years later than citizens of other countries - if they get them at all.

[Crystallas]

You have something factual that supports this quote? I am sure you understand the history that led up to the FDA's creation right? Given that knowledge I can't fathom why you think doing away with the FDA would be a good thing for the country.

Anytime a terminally ill person can not get a life saving drug before it gets approved. And where did I say that I would do away with the FDA? Please show me this, because I clearly stated my position on the FDA early on, or are you stereotyping(you meet one classic liberal, therefore I must be an exact clone of the rest, right?) me into positions that I do not hold to make an argument against a position that I do not have?

[joe]

Here is a great article.


Drug Approvals and Deadly Delays
By Sam Kazman
November 01, 2010
Originally published in Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons

Full Document Available in PDF

Truth can be stranger than fiction, and bureaucracy can be stranger than metaphor.

In 1984 a man named John Nestor became notorious in Washington DC for his unusual driving habits on the Beltway. Mr. Nestor had the unique habit of getting into the leftmost lane with his cruise control set at 55 mph, the posted speed limit. He would drive at this speed regardless of what came up behind him. Cars would zoom up close to his rear bumper; drivers would flash their lights and blast their horns, some swerving around him on the right while giving him the finger—none of this fazed Mr. Nestor in the least. As he explained it, 55 mph was the law, and he had a right to drive in whichever lane he chose: “Why should I inconvenience myself for someone who wants to speed?”

John Nestor’s story stirred a huge amount of public reaction, some supportive, most of it as outraged as the drivers who encountered him on the road. The term “nestoring” was coined to mean adhering to the precise details of the rules. To me, John Nestor was a good metaphor for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and its painstakingly slow approval process for drugs and devices.

But then it turned out that John Nestor wasn’t just a metaphor for FDA; he actually worked there. In fact, in 1972 he had been transferred out of FDA’s cardio-renal-pulmonary unit because that division “had approved no new chemical entities … from 1968 to 1972, an experience that contrasted with the experience of every other medical modern nation and with the experience of other divisions of the FDA.”

But while John Nestor’s inactivity at FDA made him a villain to some, it made him a hero to others. Ralph Nader’s Health Research Group argued that Nestor “had an unassailable record of protecting the public from harmful drugs” and helped Nestor eventually overturn his transfer. When Nestor passed away in 1999, his Washington Post obituary fittingly read: “FDA Official Renowned for Strict Driving Habits.”

FDA is one of the most powerful federal agencies, regulating products that account for approximately one out of every four consumer dollars. No new medical drug or device can be marketed until the agency has passed on its safety and effectiveness.

FDA’s approval process took its current form in the wake of the thalidomide tragedy. In 1957, thalidomide was introduced in Germany as a sedative with remarkably few side effects. It quickly became available in over 40 countries, and was especially popular among pregnant women for controlling morning sickness. Its U.S. licensee filed for FDA approval here in 1960. The application was handled by a Dr. Frances Kelsey, who withheld approval while she investigated possible peripheral nerve damage from the drug. But during the course of her investigation, the drug became linked to severe fetal deformities, a discovery which soon resulted in its worldwide withdrawal. Dr. Kelsey was hailed as a hero for preventing thalidomide’s widespread use in the U.S. and received the Presidential Gold Medal for Distinguished Service. In September, 2010, she became the first recipient of a new FDA award named in her honor.

In retrospect, it’s unclear whether it was investigative skill or luck that led Dr. Kelsey to hold up the thalidomide application. For one thing, she was investigating peripheral neuritis, not fetal deformities; her subsequent claim that the two were related is dubious. Moreover, other countries with regulatory approval regimes, such as Sweden and Canada, had approved the drug.

The thalidomide episode spurred the congressional transformation of FDA into the agency it is today. Before then, FDA’s basic responsibility was to certify the safety of new drugs prior to marketing. But the 1962 Kefauver amendments added drug efficacy to FDA’s responsibilities, even though, ironically, the problem with thalidomide involved safety, not efficacy.

But whether the issue is safety or efficacy, the thalidomide episode illustrated a basic precept—when it comes to approving new drugs, waiting may well be the best course of action. As one commentary noted, the honors bestowed on Dr. Kelsey demonstrated to many others at FDA that “there is no credit to be gained for lives saved due to speed regulatory action …”

The power of that precept stems from the fact that, as a government agency, FDA is a political entity, subject to intense pressure from Congress and the media. That precept, moreover, is strengthened by the huge difference between the two alternatives that face FDA when it comes to approving new therapies.

If FDA approves a drug that later turns out to be disastrous, then people will clearly suffer. On the other hand, if FDA delays or denies a truly needed drug, people will also suffer. Medically, these two types of mistakes are both harmful.

But from a political standpoint, there is a huge difference between them. Those injured by an incorrectly approved drug will often know that they are victims of FDA mistakes. Their stories make riveting news, and their testimony, or that of their surviving families, is dynamite. But for victims of incorrect FDA delays or denials, who are prevented from using drugs that could have helped them, the situation is far different. All they know is that their doctors told them that nothing more could be done to help them. Only a fraction of these people will understand the reason for this—namely, that a useful drug was bottled up at FDA.

And so, unlike in the first scenario, these people do not realize that they too are victims of FDA mistakes. Their suffering or death is simply viewed, by them and by others, as reflecting the state of medicine rather than the status of an FDA drug application.

In short, victims of incorrect FDA approvals are highly visible, while victims of incorrect FDA delays or denials are practically invisible.

For example, consider FDA’s incredibly long delay in approving beta-blockers to reduce the risk of second heart attacks. By the mid-1970s this had been documented in clinical trials and a number of beta-blockers were approved for this use in Europe. But in the U.S., FDA imposed a moratorium on beta-blocker approvals due to their possible carcinogenicity in animals. (Among the staffers involved in this delay was that fastidious driver, John Nestor. ) In effect, FDA was denying needed cardiac drugs to people at high risk of heart attacks because of the unproven possibility that those drugs might cause cancer years in the future.

Finally, in 1981 FDA approved the first such drug, boasting that it might save up to 17,000 lives per year. That meant, of course, that as many as 100,000 people may have died waiting for FDA to act —an explosive point, but one that very few journalists pursued. For all practical purposes, these people were invisible in a very literal sense-- we’ve all seen photos of thalidomide victims, but I suspect that not one of us has ever seen a photo of someone who suffered or died due to FDA’s beta-blocker moratorium.


Similarly, in the early 1990s it took FDA over three years to approve interleukin-2 as the first therapy for advanced kidney cancer. By the time FDA acted, the drug was available in nine European countries. In clinical trials, the drug had produced remissions of six months or longer in 15-20% of patients. Then why did FDA delay so long? Because the drug was relatively toxic and resulted in the deaths of approximately five percent of those who took it. It was this latter issue that occupied FDA’s attention, obscuring the fact that metastatic kidney cancer has the even worse side effect of killing 100% of its victims. If we roughly estimate that the drug might have helped 10% of those who otherwise die of kidney cancer, then FDA’s delay might have contributed to the deaths of over 3,000 people. Have we seen any photos of them?

These episodes clearly illustrate the political and journalistic differences between the opposing goals of avoiding both incorrect approvals and incorrect delays and denials. Medically, both types of agency action are harmful, but politically there is no comparison between them. One has impact, the other doesn’t. In the words of FDA Commissioner Alexander M. Schmidt,

“In all of FDA’s history, I am unable to find a single instance where a Congressional committee investigated the failure of FDA to approve a new drug. But, the times when hearings have been held to criticize our approval of nf new drugs have been so frequent that we aren’t able to count them …. The message to FDA staff could not be clearer.”

He went on to note that

“Congressional pressure for our negative action on new drug applications is, therefore, intense. And it seems to be increasing, as everyone is become as self-acclaimed expert on carcinogenesis and drug testing.”

Dr. Schmidt made that statement in 1974. Fifteen years ago it seemed that the tide had turned, as FDA’s handling of drug and device applications improved somewhat with staff increases and with a growing recognition of the need to streamline approvals, reflected in the 1997 FDA Modernization Act. But in recent years that trend has been reversed. FDA has come under increasing assault by outside groups, from the press, and from the Democrat-controlled Congress. Those same groups have enabled dissenters within FDA to gain more clout as well, resulting in



Full article here..

http://cei.org/op-eds-articles/drug-approvals-and-deadly-delays

[joe]

Anytime a terminally ill person can not get a life saving drug before it gets approved. And where did I say that I would do away with the FDA? Please show me this, because I clearly stated my position on the FDA early on, or are you stereotyping(you meet one classic liberal, therefore I must be an exact clone of the rest, right?) me into positions that I do not hold to make an argument against a position that I do not have?

What is your position?

[Crystallas]

What is your position?

http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showpost.php?p=7010388&postcount=80

[joe]

http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showpost.php?p=7010388&postcount=80

Interesting. I'm surprised you feel that way. I'm sure you've taken into account the problems even if the FDA could only perform safety testing. Do you think they should retain regulatory power?

[Crystallas]

Interesting. I'm surprised you feel that way. I'm sure you've taken into account the problems even if the FDA could only perform safety testing. Do you think they should retain regulatory power?

Until a transitional body has been established within the market, you can't help but allow the FDA to regulate. But only based on safety, and preferably through committees with the congress so we can make sure all decisions are made publicly. Much like AIB's(private institution) standards are far stricter(and more effective) than the FDA's for food storage, food manufacturing, and a few other material handling areas, we would require signaling the market by covering the gaps that the FDA has monopolized upon. Then, we will be at a stage where we can discuss the elimination of the FDA all together. We dug ourselves into a hole, we can't just rocket out, we need to dig our way out.

[joe]

Until a transitional body has been established within the market, you can't help but allow the FDA to regulate. But only based on safety, and preferably through committees with the congress so we can make sure all decisions are made publicly. Much like AIB's(private institution) standards are far stricter(and more effective) than the FDA's for food storage, food manufacturing, and a few other material handling areas, we would require signaling the market by covering the gaps that the FDA has monopolized upon. Then, we will be at a stage where we can discuss the elimination of the FDA all together. We dug ourselves into a hole, we can't just rocket out, we need to dig our way out.

Ahh ya I totally agree with you. We would need a transitional phase away from the FDA, it would be disaster if we just banned it.

[Turkododo]

okay.

[IcanzIIravor]

Anytime a terminally ill person can not get a life saving drug before it gets approved. And where did I say that I would do away with the FDA? Please show me this, because I clearly stated my position on the FDA early on, or are you stereotyping(you meet one classic liberal, therefore I must be an exact clone of the rest, right?) me into positions that I do not hold to make an argument against a position that I do not have?

My apologies. I think I had you missed up with Joe. I can understand your position more than I can understand Joe's. I think the FDA serves a purpose and I do agree it can be streamlined and do a better job in bring well tested and well researched drugs to the market quicker as well as getting away from the cozy relationship a lot of the oversight agencies have with the various industries they keep an eye on.

[vinsane01]

Here is a great article.

Full article here..

http://cei.org/op-eds-articles/drug-approvals-and-deadly-delays

Compelling article. So basically being very strict is the main reason why american's didnt suffer from the teratogenic effects of thalidomide. They werent even focusing their research on the right adverse effect of the sedative, not even close. But still, the right decision was made and they had the oversight to not approve a drug that isnt fully tested. What struck me most was beta-blocker and interleukin 2 approval delay. If the details are accurate then im appalled. Just shocking considering they got that much praise from the thalidomide incident.

I agree with crystallas too since the fda has already established their presence and is basically the primary agency that is trusted by the masses to approve drugs and other consumable products. There should be an establishment of a publicly trusted "private fda" first before any form of transition from government regulation to free market regulation is attempted.

[Crystallas]

My apologies. I think I had you missed up with Joe. I can understand your position more than I can understand Joe's. I think the FDA serves a purpose and I do agree it can be streamlined and do a better job in bring well tested and well researched drugs to the market quicker as well as getting away from the cozy relationship a lot of the oversight agencies have with the various industries they keep an eye on.
:cheers:

[joe]

My apologies. I think I had you missed up with Joe. I can understand your position more than I can understand Joe's. I think the FDA serves a purpose and I do agree it can be streamlined and do a better job in bring well tested and well researched drugs to the market quicker as well as getting away from the cozy relationship a lot of the oversight agencies have with the various industries they keep an eye on.

Here is why I think the FDA has to be abolished, rather than just streamlined.

The FDA is poorly run, drains resources from the economy, and is directly causing the deaths of thousands of people. But these are merely symptoms of the real problem.

The real problem with the FDA, is that the FDA is a government agency.

No matter what changes you make to it, it will still be a government agency. And with that, comes all the inefficiencies associated with government.

Ridonks: Just because one government agency is inefficient, doesn't mean all are.

DueceWallaces: OH YA ALL GOVERNMENT AGENCIES ARE INEFFICIENT, YOURE SUCH A STUPID IDEOLOGUE

Actually, there's a good reason that government agencies are naturally inefficient. It's because they 1) Are not expected to make a profit and 2) Are not spending their own money.

Without getting all technical.. how do business owners make decisions? How do they know when to raise prices? How do they know when to lower them? How do they know what customers want more of, and what customers want less of?

They make these decisions through price signals. If their expenses raise, they raise prices. If customers aren't buying a particular product, they discontinue it. Prices are constantly giving entrepreneurs important signals.

Thanks to the profit motive, business owners are extremely vigilant to responding to price signals.

A government agency, on the other hand, has no profit motive. And because it lacks a profit motive, it has no incentive to respond to price signals.

With a private business, if they are losing money, that is a signal to change their strategy. To sell different products. To offer a different service.

When government agencies lose money, they don't care. Taxpayers are forced to buy their services, so they have no incentive to cater to them. Unlike a business, which has every incentive to cater to customers.

This only explains government inefficient in terms of price signals. That's not even to mention, that whenever you give the government power, following closely behind will be rich corporations, lobbying to use that power to their advantage. Which is what we have with every single government regulatory body today. Massive corruption and bribery.

[brantonli]

Just out of curiosity joe, do you know what the economic definition of efficiency is?


Oh also, that's why governments have something called checks and balance. Now, does it work is a different matter, but the point is that just because for now, those balances don't work, doesn't mean you get rid of the whole thing. You try and improve it.


Also, if I'm honest, if you want to see a system where there's very little government regulation of consumer products and poor enforcement of product safety laws, just look at China. Sure, you may be able to lower prices and 'free up the market', but at what cost? Does it have to be that some kids have to die from poisoned milk powder for regulation to step up?

And the principle problem is of uncertainty. Is it true that in the long run, the companies selling crappy goods will go out of business? Yes. But in the short run, are you willing to risk the fact that those goods can cause very serious harm to the consumer (and especially for medical products, the consumer is very ignorant about it)? That's the tradeoff. Inefficiency of a government body (Which should be rectified) or short term endangerment of lives.

[joe]

Just out of curiosity joe, do you know what the economic definition of efficiency is?


Oh also, that's why governments have something called checks and balance. Now, does it work is a different matter, but the point is that just because for now, those balances don't work, doesn't mean you get rid of the whole thing. You try and improve it.


Also, if I'm honest, if you want to see a system where there's very little government regulation of consumer products and poor enforcement of product safety laws, just look at China. Sure, you may be able to lower prices and 'free up the market', but at what cost? Does it have to be that some kids have to die from poisoned milk powder for regulation to step up?

And the principle problem is of uncertainty. Is it true that in the long run, the companies selling crappy goods will go out of business? Yes. But in the short run, are you willing to risk the fact that those goods can cause very serious harm to the consumer (and especially for medical products, the consumer is very ignorant about it)? That's the tradeoff. Inefficiency of a government body (Which should be rectified) or short term endangerment of lives.

I'm in favor of abolishing the FDA on a federal level, but letting individual states form their own FDA's.

If the people of Wisconsin want their state government to regulate food and drugs, they should have that choice. But if California wants free markets, that's fine too.

At least here you introduce competition. If you don't mind higher taxes in exchange for an FDA, move to New Hampshire. If you prefer lower taxes and free markets, Florida is for you.

(And in my opinion, people would be moving out of the FDA states in droves, once they realize prices are higher and quality is lower. IMO. But maybe not. That's why we allow competition and may the best idea win, aye?)

Seriously, when did we decide that one city (Washington DC) has the ability to effectively govern hundreds of millions of people? One government agency decides to write a law, and the whole country is forced to deal with it. They add thousands of laws every year. How is this healthy?

Our country isn't like Europe or France. There's way more people, way more land, and way more varied cultures. To have one city writing thousands of laws every year for all of us is insane.

Would pro-FDA people be supportive of that? How about you Brantonli?

[brantonli]

So in a sense, basically letting states opt in/out of the FDA? That's definitely an interesting idea. Personally I wouldn't mind trying it as an thought experiment, but it would never happen, people tend not to like playing around with (potentially) human lives. And I'm not sure if businesses will be in favour of this (imagine if only half of the states have FDA, still that means businesses will have to have their drugs tested 25 times before it's sold, it will be such a hassle and a waste for businesses).

[joe]

So in a sense, basically letting states opt in/out of the FDA? That's definitely an interesting idea. Personally I wouldn't mind trying it as an thought experiment, but it would never happen, people tend not to like playing around with (potentially) human lives. And I'm not sure if businesses will be in favour of this (imagine if only half of the states have FDA, still that means businesses will have to have their drugs tested 25 times before it's sold, it will be such a hassle and a waste for businesses).

Businesses could just choose to only do business in free-market states. They would avoid the EPA states and pill prices would rise in them. The quality would go down from the lack of competition. The free market states would be attracting industry, jobs, etc. And, IMO, the pills would be just as safe, if not safer than the EPA states.

The FDA would have to adjust to survive. Lower their costs, make it less stressful and costly for businesses to deal with them. Not write as many regulations. They couldn't just run roughshod like they do now.