Ban the FDA

[slickpoppa]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Without an FDA, how would doctors and patients know which drugs were safe and effective?

The same way we know which computers and restaurants are good -- through newspapers, magazines and word of mouth

[/ QUOTE ]

You deserve to be poisoned if you think this is a reasonable way to regulate.

[/ QUOTE ]

I wouldn't go that far, but no regulation at all is a terrible idea and would lead to many deaths. Comparing drugs to restaurants is ridiculous. The difference is that an unsafe drug can kill people.

[BCPVP]

[ QUOTE ]
The difference is that an unsafe drug can kill people.

[/ QUOTE ]
And unsafe restaurants cannot?

[superleeds]

[ QUOTE ]
And unsafe restaurants cannot

[/ QUOTE ]

And this is why they are subject to government controlled regulations not by their own whims on what is safe and what is not

[ACPlayer]

What is the role of the FDA in the control of prescribing drugs like XANAX, Oxycontin, Perococet etc?

Without FDA and of course (since 89, now THAT was a monumental mistake) the pushing of drugs by the manufacturers on TV would I be able to walk in and buy any of these scheduled drugs? Would the manufacturer be able to say on TV -- get happy down a perc.

I just followed the link (rather than reading the inline article) and find that is the Stoesel who used to do tabloid style reporting on ABC years ago. I see he has now crossed over into offering public policy opinion.

I find it hard to take him seriously.

[BCPVP]

But these regulations are not foolproof. What incentive does the restaurant owner (or drug company) have in intentionally harming their patrons? Not only is that bad P.R., but it's looked down upon in business circles to hurt/kill your clients (unless you're a tobacco company [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]). And if you had read the article, you'll have recognized that private businesses like Consumer Reports/UL could (and most likely would) take up the slack in providing us with accurate information about these products.

[slickpoppa]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The difference is that an unsafe drug can kill people.

[/ QUOTE ]
And unsafe restaurants cannot?

[/ QUOTE ]

Anything can kill you of course. But my reading of the article was that it was referring to the quality of the dining experience at restaurants and not health conditions. The article was saying that people could be protected from dangerous drugs in the same way that they are protected from bad restaurants by food critics. But the problem is that such a system would not protect the first group of people who are killed by a bad drug before the word gets out that it is dangerous.

[BCPVP]

I don't understand this belief that the drug industry is just itching to sell us stuff that will kill us. This doesn't make any sense. Nowhere is it suggested that all testing of drugs will stop. Obviously drug companies will still do testing to make sure their product doesn't kill their customers.

And I think the restaurant example was to show that the quality of a private business is still documented even though there isn't a federal agency looking over it's shoulder.

Also, for all those worried about people dying from unsafe drugs, how many people with horrible diseases have died because it takes years for drugs that might help them to jump through enough hoops to satisfy a federal bureaucracy? How do you reconcile this with your claims that people would die from bad drugs, since people are most likely already dying because of the FDA?

[ptmusic]

[ QUOTE ]
But these regulations are not foolproof. What incentive does the restaurant owner (or drug company) have in intentionally harming their patrons?

[/ QUOTE ]

Obviously, there is no incentive for drug companies to INTENTIONALLY harming its customers. But there is a huge upside for those companies to freely test/sell new drugs on people without any regulation. If they discover a new miracle drug through unregulated testing/selling, financially speaking, it will make up for all the loss of money spent on the harmful/failed drugs.

And if there is a cap (or ban? how much do you want to give these companies?) on lawsuits against these companies when harm IS caused, their profits will soar at the cost of human lives. Of course, lives will be saved by the miracle drugs, but we can't just let the drug companies be in charge of regulating themselves.

The FDA is far from perfect, but we need some regulations.

-ptmusic

[SheetWise]

ACPlayer -

I didn't respond because I figured that after you had a chance to review it, you would understand the statement had no connection to the topic.

You suggest that drug companies "knowingly" offer drugs and don't disclose known side effects. This obviously would be an evil act, and may happen. Your question really asks, 'should we exempt drug companies for this action'. Since you took the time to ask, my answer is no -- but I'd really like to hear from the pro-exemption lobby.

If I ignore you in the future, it's because I really don't have much interest in a pissing contest with an unarmed opponent.

- SheetWise

[SheetWise]

For those of us old enough, remember the Johnson+Johnson tampering scandal. For those younger, that was an incident where a third party contaminated J+J products after they were on the shelf -- and was the genesis for tamper proof containers, inner-seals, locking lids, and rings of plastic on anything consumable.

That incident tanked J+J stock, and they reacted quickly. Free market policing works with companies that have a lot to lose. Then there are companies like Shackley that pop up out of nowhere -- for public safety, they need to be regulated. Then there are the LLCs created by the big guys ...

The industry needs oversight, but it doesn't need to be handcuffed.

- SheetWise