he time has long since come for the Congress to abolish the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, also known as the FDA. Contrary to the baloney put out on the various pages of its web site, which would lead the unwary taxpayer into thinking that the FDA is actually protecting him or her from some hazard, the FDA has outlived any usefulness its partisans and bureaucrats have claimed for it. Getting rid of this bureaucratic dinosaur would save taxpayers nearly $1.7 billion (the proposed fiscal year 2004 budget), lead to reductions in the prices of food and drugs paid by consumers, reduce lawsuits over product liability, and reduce the number of lives lost and lives shortened due to a lack of drugs and medical devices.
16 comments
...reduce lawsuits over product liability...
Yes. If you remove the government's ability to determine whether products are the cause of damages, then it will be difficult to prove in court that the companies are liable for damages that they cause. So that part is true, although I have no idea why you think it's a good thing.
-Frank
This, ladies and gentlemen, is what's known as a Free Market Fundie.
Is that the same thing as a Randroid, or is there a subtle difference?
Is that the same thing as a Randroid, or is there a subtle difference?
Randroids have definite (and weird) ideas on aesthetics and such while Free Market Fundies don't necessarily. But the biggest difference is that Randroids believe in a pseudo-divine spark that propels creators and capital owners that exempts them from compromising with others. On the other hand, the Free Market Fundie demands that any person with capital should be allowed to make money in any way.
Bottom line: Randroid opposes all government interference except military and defense of intellectual property, the Free Market Fundie opposes even those. Friedman instead of Rand.
But basically the practical effects of them are about the same. Both of them involve you living in a Dickensian hellscape where you don't eat every day, don't have healthcare, and work in sooty factories for 12 hours a day week-long for pittances.
-Frank
"the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, also known as the FDA"
THOSE ARE THE SAME?!?!
Yes it would save us money and reduce the price of food, but who's going to tell us we're eating viruses when a biocrisis hits? Who's going to tell us what's safe to eat and what isn't?
How can you be sure? Would you tell that to the dying patients who are told that they can't have a cure because of the several year long process of approving a drug?
You also have to understand that the FDA was set up by certain corporations in order to make life more difficult for their rivals. During the progressive era, when the FDA started up, they had certain food standards that only certain businesses could realistically follow. Many competitors were not able to follow these standards and were driven out of business.
Don't think of the FDA as a righteous crusader of law, rather, think of it as like a mob owned crooked cop that wipes out rival mob bosses.
Rogue the purpose of the FDA is to make sure that medicines and medical devices: #1 do what they claim to do, and #2 are safe to use amongst the general public.
The FDA was not set up by large drug companies, it was set up by the United States government, and, in my opinion, drug manufacturing techniques that involved strychnine, cocaine, opiates, and high grade alcohol haphazardly mixed together deserves to be banned.
I'll grant you that the Bushies have weakened its regulatory abilities somewhat, but by and large, I'd rather have Coca-Cola be a soft drink than a panacea.
Getting rid of the army would safe you $439.3 Billion ;)
lead to reductions in the prices of food and drugs paid by consumers, reduce lawsuits over product liability, and reduce the number of lives lost and lives shortened due to a lack of drugs and medical devices.
All in all, I'd say the FDA is doing it's job.
"Rogue the purpose of the FDA is to make sure that medicines and medical devices: #1 do what they claim to do, and #2 are safe to use amongst the general public."
Every organization has its mission statement, but a person should also use critical thinking to really determine how closely they are really following the stated goals.
"The FDA was not set up by large drug companies, it was set up by the United States government"
Ever hear of something called 'lobbying'? You have to understand that there are reasons that a government does something. They did not just sit around one day and said "Hey! Lets have a food and drug administration, just for the hell of it!".
With your kind of logic, one could say that the government was exclusively responsible for no-bid contracts to Haliburton. Haliburton is a really obvious case. Many other forms of favoritism are not necessarily so cut and dry.
"I'd rather have Coca-Cola be a soft drink than a panacea."
If Coca-Cola were a panacea, it would go out of business and no one would buy it. Would you?
You're absolutely right there is a reason the US government founded the FDA, because it is the responsibility of a government to protect its citizens from harm. In the early 20th Century anybody could sell medicines, put what ever they wanted in them, not tell anybody what is in them, and claim that they could cure diseases. Then in 1906 Colliers Magazine ran an 11 part series exposing these people as quacks selling potentially dangerous drugs and false hope. Then in the 1950s there was a drug called thalidomide which was prescribed to pregnant European women to help with nausea. Unfortunately no tests were done on the safety of the drug and hundreds of babies were born with birth defects. The result, Congress passed a law which stated that the safety of all drugs sold in the United States had to be proved or else you couldn't sell it.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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