# Should we abolish the FDA? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 18, 2006, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-abolish-the-fda/380931 "2006-11-18T09:18:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2006, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-abolish-the-fda/380931/61 "2006-11-21T02:13:19Z")
If i have ANY say at all in this argument… Both sides have interesting, if not good, aspects to them. The truth always lies somewhere in the middle. Yes, the FDA is flawed. It’s been proven in the past, when markets were more “free” that some sort of regulation was necessary. The FDA is regulation. Within the constraints of the controls, the markets is free to do whatever it wishes to do. What if we had things like the parcel delivery industry? We have a government carrier, the basic carrier that offers some gourmet services, and a few private options. They all essentially do the same thing. Is that a decent compromise or example? ---
**Author:** ![FRDE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e68b1a/32.png) [@FRDE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FRDE)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2006, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-abolish-the-fda/380931/62 "2006-11-21T11:47:12Z")
[QUOTE=Sam Stone] You can always build a strawman like this. The thing is, you ignore all the forces in the market that prevent this kind of behaviour. [/QUOTE] Maybe you should look at the reasons why regulations were introduced in the first place - in the UK we had problems with food adulteration. > [@](#): > > Shareholders may be stupid on an individual level, but institutional shareholders like mutual funds aren’t. They expend great effort to determine the viability of a business. Likewise, the people who fund the company are probably not with the, “make a quick buck and get out” plan. Nor are the large companies like Merck who would want to buy the drug and finance the trials of it likely to be with that program. And doctors who don’t want to be sued for malpractice are not likely to buy just any any drug and feed it to their patients. Absent an FDA, they’re likely to do their due diligence by reading peer-reviewed journals, or subscribing to review journals that give them the information they need, or to follow the list of drugs on their insurers approved list. I don’t share your view of institutional shareholders, it does not tie up with my experience. If they scent a problem they get out, and the biggest problem is reduced returns - which gives professional management a major incentive to cut corners. They are all in it for the short term. > [@](#): > > See, you’re operating under the belief that the ‘market’ is just a big, unregulated blob of people, some of whom would take advantage of others if we didn’t have the beneficient hand of government protecting us. I keep pointing to market-driven regulations against this sort of behaviour, and evidence galore that businesses simply don’t tend to behave this way, but it always seems to be ignored, and the same old, “But the rapacious capitalists will exploit us all!” argument is just repeated ad-nauseum until the debate peters out. > > You can always find cases of business that behaves unethically, just as you can find individual cases of government officials being corrupted and behaving unethically. The question is whether or not on the whole the market is capable of regulating this behaviour. Not perfectly, but well enough that the benefits of the market outweigh the risks. I believe that the market is a big blob of morons, and that there are individuals who are looking for a quick buck, and they would do anything to get it. I also believe that the government has a natural tendency to interfere, it is simple personal empire building. The problem is deciding how far to interfere, for example the EC tried to regulate the size and shape of a banana - absurd. Yet Austrian wine manufacturers put glycerol (antifreeze !) in their white wine. Look at the current Vodka problem in Russia. ---
**Author:** ![donbrian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/74df32/32.png) [@donbrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/donbrian)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2014, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-abolish-the-fda/380931/63 "2014-08-28T19:33:11Z")
FDA a bias corrupt mob. Anatabloc actually works and reduces internal inflammation. The FDA forces this product off the market when it is saving millions of people, like me. Without this product I’ll be in a wheelchair again. The AMA must be running this federal unregulated agency. To solve a crime follow the money. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2014, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-abolish-the-fda/380931/64 "2014-08-28T19:42:51Z")
> [@donbrian](#): > > FDA a bias corrupt mob. Anatabloc actually works and reduces internal inflammation. The FDA forces this product off the market when it is saving millions of people, like me. Without this product I’ll be in a wheelchair again. > The AMA must be running this federal unregulated agency. > To solve a crime follow the money. You go through the testing procedures, get it approved, _then_ you promote its medicinal properties. Sounds simple enough to me. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2014, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-abolish-the-fda/380931/65 "2014-08-29T01:55:59Z")
> [@Opus1](#): > > My argument is not “hypothetical.” It is based on reality–certain people can’t take drugs that might save their lives due to the FDA. Even if you deny that this is the situation, I fail to see what makes you think you can dodge a legitimate argument just by labeling it hypothetical. We don’t need an actual doctor killing a person for his organs to have a spirited debate on whether such a practice is ethical. > > As to your question, I doubt it, but I’m not sure. I also doubt that there’s a single industrialized nation in the world that doesn’t have tariffs either, which hardly proves that they’re a good idea. You can take those drugs in countries that have approved them or are you talking about drugs that haven’t been approved anywhere? Can you just imagine how much money someone can make off a rich guy dying of cancer? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2014, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-abolish-the-fda/380931/66 "2014-08-29T01:59:22Z")
> [@Opus1](#): > > Ugh. I hate to get off topic again, but I don’t even know where to begin on this one. Economists have known that tariffs are a bad idea for two centuries. They exist largely because they benefit small, discrete groups with large political power at the cost of large, diffuse groups without such power. The fact that you can even argue for tariffs with a straight face given all the harm they’ve done to mankind for centuries undermines pretty much any credibility you might have on economic matters. Do you also think that machines and immigrants cost jobs? > > Anyway, I’ve yet to see anyone provide any evidence that the FDA has saved more lives than it has cost. Sam Stone has provided yet more evidence showing the opposite. Evidence? Or arguments? If Harry Osbourne had waited for FDA approval, the Green Goblin would never have existed. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2014, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-abolish-the-fda/380931/67 "2014-08-29T02:05:04Z")
> [@Opus1](#): > > If you do sell the drug, you face millions of dollars in lawsuits. You seem to implicitly refute this premise by claiming that the heart attacks from this drug won’t be noticed in the general population. So, how were they noticed in the clinical testing? Who is keeping track of the heart attacks in the general population? > [@](#): > > Assuming a functioning legal system (a big if) in which consumers are permitted to recover damages for injuries from defective drugs, companies actually have the exact correct motivation. If they don’t sell a potentially useful drug, they lose profits. If they sell a potentially harmful drug, they risk lawsuits. As such, they are constantly searching for the “sweet spot” of testing. Too little –\> lawsuits and lost $; too much –\> lost profits. Those lawsuits represent lives and health. So its really profits::lives (with a price tag only if the death is detected and attributable to your drug and the price you pay is limited by how much you have in assets, its not like we can take dividends back from shareholders). > [@](#): > > Contrast the FDA. The FDA gets hit hard in the press, by congresspeople, and by the public at large if it approves a drug prematurely that later turns out to be dangerous. But what is consequence for taking too long to approve a drug? As has been demonstrated several times already in this thread, FDA delays in drug approval have cost **hundreds of thousands of lives** , and yet no one is calling for the FDA members to be indicted for crimes against humanity. The FDA has asymmetrical motivation, and as such will constantly error on the side of delays, denials, and further testing. A lot of bureaucracies work this way. They are overly conservative and primarily concerned with avoiding criticism. This argument against the FDA is applicable to just about every regulatory body in the government. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2014, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-abolish-the-fda/380931/68 "2014-08-29T02:17:19Z")
**DA** , **Opus1** hasn’t posted in over a year. Abolishing the FDA because the approval process is too slow seems insane, even for libertarians (well, they generally seem insane to me), and I notice one of the idea’s supporters is **Sam Stone** , a known Canadian who benefits from the studies of of both the FDA and Health Canada, while getting treated at socialized medicine prices. ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2014, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-abolish-the-fda/380931/69 "2014-08-29T02:19:35Z")
I wish this thread weren’t a zombie. 20 years in pharmaceutical development, clinical trial management, and pharmaceutical manufacturing have taught me one thing: The FDA is absolutely, positively necessary. The complexity of these things are staggering, and multi factor analyses require lots of data. Not only would we not do it if we didn’t have to, we KNOW what studies to avoid lest we risk discovering something we don’t want to know. And if we didn’t do it, no Consumer Reports or UL would be able to, because all that data costs shitloads to generate. FURTHERMORE, they couldn’t do it even if they had the money. Why? We wouldn’t give them the product, which if not OTC would only be available from us. But remember, we aren’t stupid. So all we have to do to prevent the controlled study that would actually elucidate safety and efficacy is come up with some BS reason why we won’t make the product available. And if you don’t have a serious background in the right subjects, and statistics, you are not going to be qualified to assess the data on your own. That’s to say nothing of the enforcement role the FDA plays with respect to manufacturing. Remember, this is a space where tiny errors can turn medicine into poison. Without the FDA performing inspections, even good drugs will become unsafe. And, with the complexities involved, lawsuits will never serve as adequate enforcement mechanisms, because the lack of data (see above) will make it impossible to convince a jury that the harm was caused by the product. I realize that we love cites in this forum, but please trust me- 20 years across several pharma R&D/Clinical organizations, from startup to massive- I have seen how important the phrase “The agency will never go for that” is to keeping things honest. ---
**Author:** ![theR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@theR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/theR)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2014, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-abolish-the-fda/380931/70 "2014-08-29T14:01:20Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > My point was that A) the FDA didn’t stop quackery, so it’s ridiculous to point to the existence of pre-FDA quackery as a justification for the FDA, and B) That when it comes down to serious issues of life and death, people today tend to abandon the quackery and go for the real thing. It’s one thing to wear a copper bracelet for your chronic arthritis, it’s another to refuse a doctor’s treatment for a brain tumor in favor of a copper helmet. > > Quackery abounds. The market doesn’t guarantee perfect intellectual rigor in all parts of life. It just guarantees that, given what people desire, goods and services will be allocated efficiently to provide it. Clearly, what people want today is effective medicines. Quackery exists not to replace effective medicines, but to fill the gap between what people want and what they can get. No amount of regulation will prevent that. The FDA doesn’t stop the supplement market because of legislation that specifically bars them from doing so. If they were legally allowed to, supplements would largely be out of business for having exactly zero science behind their purposely generic claims. If people wanted effective medicines, they wouldn’t be using herbal supplements (which in many cases are [primarily rice and/or include ingredients that are not listed](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/science/herbal-supplements-are-often-not-what-they-seem.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1383945465-XvljD6UxwpzyAWUPgcqK3A&)), holistic medicines (water), or other things along those lines, yet it’s a multi-billion dollar industry. > [@](#): > > Your claim, however, is that if the FDA wasn’t there, people would choose quackery over real medicine, because they don’t know the difference and would be exploited. There is no evidence of that. We have many, many content filters that bring us information about what works and what doesn’t, and we’d have even more of them if the FDA didn’t exist. > > In fact, I’d say that medicine is even better in this regard than most markets, because most people know enough to go to a physician to seek treatment, and physicians are trained to know what works and what doesn’t. We don’t consult with personal auto mechanics when buying cars, or computer engineers when buying computers. But we do consult with doctors when seeking treatment. “[Steve Jobs Regretted Wasting Time on Alternative Medicine](http://gawker.com/5851835/steve-jobs-regretted-wasting-time-on-alternative-medicine)”. Oh, look, one of the richest Americans of his time wasted time by putting off cancer treatment in favor of alternative medicines that had absolutely no science behind them. Quackery over medicine! This just underscores how much people want to believe in magic rather than science, so selling them magic (supplements) is very effective at making people money but not very effective at improving health outcomes. I consult my mechanic when buying a used car (by having him give it a top-to-bottom check for issues) and look up repair records when buying new or used. I’m not sure why that matters for this argument. > [@](#): > > Of course they do. Is there an epidemic of people dying of treatable diseases because they refused to see a doctor in favor of a quack cure? Other than people who refuse treatment for religious reasons? Yes, it happens all the time. People self-diagnose and go to the supplement aisle rather than seeing a doctor, or they treat symptoms without bothering to get the cause diagnosed and treated. [CDC statistics](http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/pubs/estimates14.htm) estimate that 27.8% of diabetics are undiagnosed. It is a disease that makes it very clear through symptoms that something is wrong yet we have millions of people that don’t care enough to get diagnosed, don’t have the access to doctors, self-diagnose and treat, or for whatever other reasons might be shopping in the supplement aisle. It’s hard to find numbers, but one big market for supplement users also appears to be those with depression. St. John’s wort and other herbal supplements are commonly marketed for mood. Large numbers of people certainly self-treat with unproven supplements at the least and probably even self-diagnose in many cases. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2014, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-abolish-the-fda/380931/71 "2014-08-29T22:10:26Z")
I’d kinda like to see tiers of drug approval, i.e.: Level One: promising but unverified - take this if known alternative are unsuitable but it’s at your own risk. Level Two: Used to be a Level One, but it’s been a few years of broad usage and it doesn’t seem to be killing too many people. Level Three: Used to be a Level Two, but it’s been a few years of broad usage and it seems to actually be beneficial. The equivalent of what is now “FDA approved”. If I had cancer and established chemo drugs were ineffective, I’d roll the dice on a Level Two, maybe a One. Just spitballing, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2014, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-abolish-the-fda/380931/72 "2014-08-29T23:17:42Z")
> [@donbrian](#): > > FDA a bias corrupt mob. Anatabloc actually works and reduces internal inflammation. The FDA forces this product off the market when it is saving millions of people, like me. Without this product I’ll be in a wheelchair again. > The AMA must be running this federal unregulated agency. > To solve a crime follow the money. In this case, the money _was_ followed - all the way to former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell (who is reported to have gotten some very nice [del]payoffs[/del] gifts from the CEO of STSI, the supplement company that was selling Anatabloc. \*"Before the prosecution rested in the public corruption trial of former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and his former NFL Cheerleader wife Maureen last week, the focus shifted to the patent nostrum sold by Jonnie Williams, who is said to have given the couple high-priced gifts in return for promoting his product, a snake oil named Anatabloc. The active ingredient in Anatabloc is Anatabine, an alkaloid derived from tobacco. Anatabloc was said to “reduce inflammation and support a healthy metabolism” but was marketed as a “dietary supplement” to avoid those pesky clinical trials required of drugs. That didn’t keep the firm from claiming that the stuff can mitigate Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, thyroiditis and traumatic brain injuries. You know, like a drug. Finally, the FDA caught them at it and issued a stern letter. But the McDonnell trial has increased scrutiny on and skepticism of Anatabloc, so the manufacturer has finally stopped selling it."\* For those convinced Anatabloc is a panacea, don’t worry - someone will be selling and promoting it or similar snake oil before too long. If potential profits are attractive and all you have to worry about is a “stern letter” from the FDA, what’s to stop you? The FDA is (at least when it comes to supplement quackery) a largely toothless dragon. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2014, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-abolish-the-fda/380931/73 "2014-08-30T11:50:34Z")
I realize this is a zombie and Opus doesn’t post here any more, but… > [@Opus1](#): > > Final point, which always comes up in libertarian debates. Who here admits to being one of the great unwashed, who would put into his/her body anything on a drug store shelf that claims to cure what ails you? My guess is no one. It’s always someone else who’ll act stupid unless government protects them. I think people greatly underestimate the self-interest people have. …Areyou[serious](THE ENTIRE SUPPLEMENTS MARKET)? When it comes to biology and health - extremely complex, multifaceted decisions which are hard to understand - people behave like blithering idiots! I still can’t get my father to understand that homeopathy doesn’t work, and homeopathy is the most transparently bullshit non-medicine in the history of medical science. Put your quackery in a less transparent package, like Burzynski does, and you stand a good chance of fooling a lot of otherwise very smart people. See also: the entire freakin’ supplements market. Or how about vaccines? The process of “let it hit the market, then let people sue if they’re harmed” almost drove vaccines against Diptheria, Pertussis, and Tetanus off the market, despite the fact that there wasn’t even remotely good evidence supporting it. If we hadn’t implemented the VICP, we would have had the same thing happen in 1992 with MMR. Medicine is really, _really_ hard. > [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Many of see a special need for regulation of drugs, and this example will make it clear why. With monitors, it’s easy to see whether the thing works or not. If my monitor explodes, I’m going to be on the phone to Dell demanding a refund in about twenty seconds. Dell knows this, and thus has a motivation to only sell working monitors. Since their engineers can presumably fix the problem easily, self-regulation will work in that case. > > Drugs are different. Let’s say a pharmaceutical company sinks $50,000,000 into developing a new chemical compound to fight cholesterol, which we’ll call Wioxx. Testing begins, and soon the testers are back with some bad news. Wioxx causes heart attacks in a small but non-trivial percentage of users. Now what does the company do? > > From a financial perspecitve, the choice is clear. Sell the drug and you’ll make a lot of money. If the number of Wioxx-induced heart attacks is small, it probably won’t ever be noticed because it won’t stand out from random noise in the heart attack statistics. On the other hand, you probably can’t fix the problem with a minor change to Wioxx. If you don’t sell the drug, then your entire $50,000,000 goes down the drain. > > In such a case, the profit motive would drive the company to bury the bad news about Wioxx and sell it anyway. The only way to solve the problem is to have an outside regulatory agency that isn’t concerned with profits. I think it’s also important to point out that despite Vioxx coming out as dangerous, and the company getting their britches sued off, _they still made out like kings!_ They lost money on the lawsuit, but nowhere near as much as the profit margin was for their drug. I also love people comparing drugs to computer monitors. Yeah, sure, you can’t tell if a monitor will blow up in your face when it’s on the shelf in Best Buy, but when it does blow up in your face, you can immediately tell “Ah, well, I know what did that and exactly who to sue!”. But when your son is given the MMR vaccine and shortly thereafter develops autism, how easy is it to draw the wrong conclusion? When you take Vioxx and then shortly thereafter get a heart attack, how easy is it to determine that it was the Vioxx that caused it? Look, the FDA didn’t just come into being as part of a government plot to control more of the nation. It was a response to a very real, very serious problem - drugs were being pushed and we had no way of telling if they worked or not. The consequences are often quite nasty. We can look back at all the times the FDA held back drugs that were still in testing which turned out to be life-savers and prognosticate over how that was harmful. What we cannot do is look over all the drugs the FDA banned and say “what would happen if those hit the market?” Rather, we have to look at what happens in medical industries not regulated by the FDA and see what happens. For example, alternative healing - 99.999% of it is total bullshit. Or supplements - again, vast swathes of it are completely unhelpful, often even harmful. Indeed, is it not a clear failure of the free market that homeopathy continues to be a popular medication? It doesn’t work! It CANNOT work! And yet it is still valuable, despite selling it as medicine being tantamount to fraud! Is there any country which doesn’t have an organization like the FDA? If so, how are things there? If not, _what does that say about the essential nature of an organization like this?_ Despite the best fantasies of libertarians, the average consumer is not scientifically literate when it comes to medicine. The average consumer is _at best_ trusting in what the FDA and CDC has to say with little understanding of how the scientific review process works, and at worst likely to believe anecdotes and extremely bad research papers. As such, organizations like the FDA are entirely necessary. Do they sometimes restrict access to drugs that go on to save lives? Yes. But here’s something that we \*need \*to keep in mind when talking about that - for all intents and purposes, until something has passed clinical trials, _we don’t know if it works!_ You know, that’s sort of the whole point. To scientifically evaluate the procedure to see if it works in the first place. To see if it is safe and better than the current alternatives (yes, “no care” is considered an alternative). **Opus1** pointed out that the first beta blockers were delayed from the market for 3 years. Yeah, in hindsight, that’s pretty damning. But at the time, were the effects well-known and well-understood? Did we know they worked before the clinical trials? I didn’t follow it precisely, so I dunno. Maybe we did for some reason. But that’s part of the reason the FDA has its “fast-track” program, isn’t it? The FDA is necessary, valuable, and tenable. The idea that we could get rid of it in this day and age, when we have seen the harm done by sham medical industries which the FDA explicitly cannot regulate, is asinine. Necro or not, I am perfectly happy to continue this conversation. ---
**Author:** ![theR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@theR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/theR)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2014, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-abolish-the-fda/380931/74 "2014-08-30T13:51:36Z")
Yes, my bad for not realizing this was a zombie thread. It’s amazing how many old threads get bumped. ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2014, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-abolish-the-fda/380931/75 "2014-08-30T14:23:43Z")
Interesting timing on this thread revival–I’ve just been thinking about this very issue. Two thoughts– 1. Even though I’m a hard-core conservative with libertarian tendencies, I freely admit that the FDA has done **some** good. HOWEVER–if we’re going to keep it, I really, really wish that the rules on untested treatments would be changed to allow for compassionate/last-ditch efforts. If someone has a terminal prognosis, the possibility of major negative side effects from a promising but untested treatment can hardly be any worse of an outcome. 2. I think that we could get the same consumer protection that the FDA provides by abolishing it and putting the responsibility on the people who run the drug companies. If a company knows that a new drug has bad side effects, but markets it anyway, then the CEO, all the board members, the person in charge of research, etc., not only go to prison for a very long time, but they also forfeit all of their personal property. In addition, the company itself gets fined 10 times the gross sales of the drug. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2014, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-abolish-the-fda/380931/76 "2014-08-30T14:27:55Z")
It may be a zombie, but it seems like the opinion that we can do away with the FDA is more politically tenable today than it was almost a decade ago, so… ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2014, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-abolish-the-fda/380931/77 "2014-08-30T16:11:26Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > Interesting timing on this thread revival–I’ve just been thinking about this very issue. > > Two thoughts– > > 1. Even though I’m a hard-core conservative with libertarian tendencies, I freely admit that the FDA has done **some** good. HOWEVER–if we’re going to keep it, I really, really wish that the rules on untested treatments would be changed to allow for compassionate/last-ditch efforts. If someone has a terminal prognosis, the possibility of major negative side effects from a promising but untested treatment can hardly be any worse of an outcome. [They already do this.](http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ByAudience/ForPatientAdvocates/AccesstoInvestigationalDrugs/ucm176098.htm) Compassionate use exceptions are not uncommon; they don’t often do much, but they exist. I don’t know why you’d think they don’t. The people at the FDA aren’t stupid, you know. 😛 > [@](#): > > 1. I think that we could get the same consumer protection that the FDA provides by abolishing it and putting the responsibility on the people who run the drug companies. If a company knows that a new drug has bad side effects, but markets it anyway, then the CEO, all the board members, the person in charge of research, etc., not only go to prison for a very long time, but they also forfeit all of their personal property. In addition, the company itself gets fined 10 times the gross sales of the drug. Oh, sure, this would be a neat incentive, but like the tort issue that Opus1 brought up, it has one significant flaw: _it does nothing to prevent the fraud and injury_. It strongly incentivizes not doing it, but without the FDA review process, how would we even know if it was the case? I dunno, I just don’t like solutions that see a problem after the fact and say, “HEY! STOP THAT!” when we could have solutions that see a problem before it happens and nip it in the bud. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-abolish-the-fda/380931.md?page=3)