FDA Ignores Religious Fundamentalists' Objections

[hmkpoker]

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The profit maximization objective is not the right tool to decide what ride is safe for my child,

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Why don't you decide what is safe for your child?

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who is qualified to fly an airplane,

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Don't fly on a plane with poorly qualified pilots. (I have a feeling that imcompetant piloting would get some costly bad reviews rather quickly)

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or which car has priority in an intersection.

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Right, because you assume incorrectly that private roads would be unregulated. You don't think there's a demand to enforce some basic safe driving laws, if they are in fact a problem?

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When you are comparing tools, you have to consider the tools' inherent functionality (objectives) first and foremost.

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The functionality of Soviet Communism was to create a welfare state to establish equality and eventually provide peace and happiness in the Marxist utopia. Pity it forgot to think about incentives. The fact is, there's an organization (the FDA) run by human beings; fallible, and easily corruptible. It cannot go out of business or lose to competition. What are their incentives to provide a careful service? Good will? HAH!

[ACPlayer]

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You're saying the toxicity of a drug is best decided by the Invisible Hand of the Free Market? My bad.

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You tell 'im, Cyrus!

What a joke! Those free market thinkers think that there's some wonderful, magical Invisible Hand, that just magically takes care of everyone's needs and provides food and shelter and health care and entertainment and...wait...

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Even more so, they expect that the bonus craving Product Managers ensure that the information they put out in the slick ads on TV are the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

We now have a world where we are hooked on Statins, popping Prozac, pushing Ritalin -- all pushed by Doctors listening to slick salesmen or pulled by fear ridden obese men in their forties feeling the first twinge of a heart attack.

We now live in a world where organizations called Citizens for Free Information (or some such exalted name) are funded and run by Corporations pushing Fake Information, where Consumer Protection Organizations (Naderite) are labelled as loony leftists.

Where spending money on bombing Iraq is OK, but spending money to vette the Product Managers data (yes, only a little vetting), or spending money to have an organization where doctors can report adverse reactions in their patients are written off as being wasteful.

[nietzreznor]

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Do you suggest that we allow any substance which for-profit corporations (god bless 'em!) put up on the shelves -- and then we allow the free market to sort out the dangerous stuff from the good stuff?

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YES.

And it actually worked quite well too, historically. Before the FDA started poking its nose where it didn't belong, drug companies still had great incentive to produce safe drugs. What is more, they had incentive--unlike now--to produce drugs that actually helped, as opposed to things that just were tested to be safe. Before the coercive FDA, the AMA had a journal of sorts (like a consumer's report) that served to let the public know which drugs were good and which weren't. Of course, it had no coercive authority, yet, for reasons unbeknownst to those who don't understand how markets work, it made for a highly competitive market in drugs.

Until, of course, the government granted the FDA power to decide which drugs we were allowed to use. This, combined with the awful patent system (which is a topic deserving of its own post) is what has created many of the bad situations with drugs today, not the free market.

[Cyrus]

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The profit maximization objective is not the right tool to decide what ride is safe for my child,

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Why don't you decide what is safe for your child?

[/ QUOTE ] I usually do. But when I want some technologically adnaced product, such as a drug, I must rely on the opinion of experts, people such as chemists, biologists, doctors, etc. I'm neither. Even if was, I could not realistically conduct a one-man research amongst experts for every drug I want to give to my child, so I am relying on the opinion of those experts, more or less on blind faith. ("More or less" because a modicum of research usually goes on, as with most people in such situations. We try our best to do the best for ourselves and our kin.)

And I'd rather rely first on the opinion of people (such as the people who allow the drug in the market, in the first place) who do NOT stand to gain if drug XYZ is a best seller, than otherwise. A simple matter of getting the priorities right - and working for me.

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...who is qualified to fly an airplane...

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Don't fly on a plane with poorly qualified pilots. I have a feeling that imcompetant piloting would get some costly bad reviews rather quickly.

[/ QUOTE ] The process of weeding out the qualified from the unqualified -and identifying the so 'n so qualified- would involve a serious cost in human health and lives. Especially if we'd want to get statistically significant about it.

(The mobsters have a say, presumably, that goes "If there is any doubt, there is no doubt". But would we want to praise or condemn someone on the basis of a few trials? Therefore, we'd need a lot of accidents before we'd stop doing business with an airline or fly with a certain pilot. If he'd survive, that is.)

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...or which car has priority in an intersection...

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Right, because you assume incorrectly that private roads would be unregulated. You don't think there's a demand to enforce some basic safe driving laws, if they are in fact a problem?

[/ QUOTE ] LOL. Again with the "privatize-all-roads" obsession! You must be assuming that every private owner of those private roads will have the same rules and regulations and signs across the country.

Anyway, nothing personal but I do think this is a pretty idiotic argument in the first place. I cannot argue with a straight face the viability of private roads everywhere. Flashes of a Three Stooges sketch. Sorry. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

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The functionality of Soviet Communism was to create a welfare state to establish equality and eventually provide peace and happiness in the Marxist utopia.

[/ QUOTE ]Anyone who suggests the mere notion of organising something as a society is accused of totalitarian leanings by "anarcho"-capitalists. How boring this becomes, after a while.

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The ... FDA [is] run by human beings; fallible, and easily corruptible ... What are their incentives to provide a careful service? Good will? HAH!

[/ QUOTE ]I'd assume (I'd concede, if you want) that the primary objective of any organisation, and espcially of a bureaucratic, hierarchical organisatiion, is to perpetuate itself, i.e. the equivalent of the reproduction instinct in living beings. So, yes, the FDA, like most aforesaid organisations, first and foremost would want the necessity of its existence continuously affirmed and strengthened. Which would affect its overall work, in some way, one supposes.

Still, and that's the significant difference, such a motive pales in comparison to the importance of the motive behind the private organisation putting out its products (drugs): that organisation's sole objetive is profit maximization. Apparently, people have wisely decided to check that motive, as best as they could, through the creation of social woking agencies such as the FDA.

I'd vote for the FDA to be re-organised, overhauled, whatever, but I would not vote to do away with the FDA.

[matrix]

As one after another piece of the puzzle is brought to public light, serious questions arise about the reliability of ALL data released by the FDA about the safety and efficacy of drugs, including (and especially) widely prescribed drugs

- link

- link to original article - (link quoted in article expired)

FDA site with lots of links.

Basically the FDA is a govt run agency that gets to control a hideous amount of money - the pharmaceutical industry is worth some $500billion or so - it seems to me that the FDA is more interested in protecting it's income than it is protecting the lives of people using drugs/food additives etc it describes as safe.

[bisonbison]

Thread Title: Investigators catch Unibomber
AC Response: Is this supposed to convince us that government's a good idea?

Thread Title: SEC prosecutes insider trading
AC Response: Taxes are rape.


Guys, in the real world, where no one listens to libertopians, this is good news.

[pvn]

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Thread Title: Investigators catch Unibomber
AC Response: Is this supposed to convince us that government's a good idea?

Thread Title: SEC prosecutes insider trading
AC Response: Taxes are rape.


Guys, in the real world, where no one listens to libertopians, this is good news.

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It's good news that bureaucrats didn't give into a vocal minority who want to supress stuff that everyone else wants? If there were no bureaucracy, there wouldn't be any threat of the product being supressed.

If "investigators" didn't catch the unabomber, the unabomber would still be sending bombs.

If investigators didn't prosecute fraud, fraud will still occur.

Your analogies are fallacious. Of course, in the "Real World" this is what passes for intelligent debate. Congrats.

[hmkpoker]

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[Cyrus rebuts to my comments on safety regulations and private roads]

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I don't feel like addressing this again. Let's just make this easy: let's pretend that I provided an argument about why the free market can provide safety inspection based on supply and demand. You and several others disagree, and I and the rest of the ACer's argue your disagreements.

There, I like that better.

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I'd assume (I'd concede, if you want) that the primary objective of any organisation, and espcially of a bureaucratic, hierarchical organisatiion, is to perpetuate itself, i.e. the equivalent of the reproduction instinct in living beings. So, yes, the FDA, like most aforesaid organisations, first and foremost would want the necessity of its existence continuously affirmed and strengthened. Which would affect its overall work, in some way, one supposes.

Still, and that's the significant difference, such a motive pales in comparison to the importance of the motive behind the private organisation putting out its products (drugs): that organisation's sole objetive is profit maximization. Apparently, people have wisely decided to check that motive, as best as they could, through the creation of social woking agencies such as the FDA.

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The incentives are not terribly different. The FDA, like any market business, is run by people. Individuals. Greedy, self-serving, goal-oriented human beings. The people in the FDA want to increase their personal wealth just like the people in the drug companies.

The FDA, as a whole, has no collective hive mind trying to pertetuate itself, that's just an inevitable result of profit maximization. For the FDA administrators, like any government agency, to accomplish their goal of profit maximization (and thereby perpetuate itself), it has to be able to claim to the government that it needs more money. To claim this, it needs to fail.

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I'd vote for the FDA to be re-organised, overhauled, whatever, but I would not vote to do away with the FDA.

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You must use a different definition of "overhauled" than the one I'm used to [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[pvn]

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The profit maximization objective is not the right tool to decide what ride is safe for my child,

[/ QUOTE ]

Why don't you decide what is safe for your child?

[/ QUOTE ] I usually do. But when I want some technologically adnaced product, such as a drug, I must rely on the opinion of experts, people such as chemists, biologists, doctors, etc. I'm neither.

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OK, so seek their opinions. Nobody is suggesting that you be restricted from doing so.

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Even if was, I could not realistically conduct a one-man research amongst experts for every drug I want to give to my child, so I am relying on the opinion of those experts, more or less on blind faith. ("More or less" because a modicum of research usually goes on, as with most people in such situations. We try our best to do the best for ourselves and our kin.)

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So instead of experts, you'd rather place your blind faith in bureaucrats.

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And I'd rather rely first on the opinion of people (such as the people who allow the drug in the market, in the first place) who do NOT stand to gain if drug XYZ is a best seller, than otherwise. A simple matter of getting the priorities right - and working for me.

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Again, what's stopping you?

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...who is qualified to fly an airplane...

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't fly on a plane with poorly qualified pilots. I have a feeling that imcompetant piloting would get some costly bad reviews rather quickly.

[/ QUOTE ] The process of weeding out the qualified from the unqualified -and identifying the so 'n so qualified- would involve a serious cost in human health and lives. Especially if we'd want to get statistically significant about it.

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So if government doesn't license pilots, airlines will just let anyone who wants to fly their planes in order to figure out who can do it and who can't? That doesn't even pass the giggle test.

How does government magically figure out who is qualified and who isn't?

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LOL. Again with the "privatize-all-roads" obsession! You must be assuming that every private owner of those private roads will have the same rules and regulations and signs across the country.

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Who assumes that?

Every building I go into has different, unstandardized signs for the restrooms. Somehow, though, I manage to find the men's room without confusion.

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Anyone who suggests the mere notion of organising something as a society is accused of totalitarian leanings by "anarcho"-capitalists. How boring this becomes, after a while.

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No. Feel free to organize all you want. Accusations of totalitarianism only surface when you start pointing guns at people to organize them the way *you* want, instead of the way they want.

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I'd assume (I'd concede, if you want) that the primary objective of any organisation, and espcially of a bureaucratic, hierarchical organisatiion, is to perpetuate itself, i.e. the equivalent of the reproduction instinct in living beings. So, yes, the FDA, like most aforesaid organisations, first and foremost would want the necessity of its existence continuously affirmed and strengthened. Which would affect its overall work, in some way, one supposes.

Still, and that's the significant difference, such a motive pales in comparison to the importance of the motive behind the private organisation putting out its products (drugs): that organisation's sole objetive is profit maximization. Apparently, people have wisely decided to check that motive, as best as they could, through the creation of social woking agencies such as the FDA.

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So if the government doesn't test drugs, you'll have no choice but to blindly believe whatever the producer of the drug tells you? Even though that's what you're doing now, since the FDA bases their decisions on data supplied by the manufacturer. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[bisonbison]

It's good news that bureaucrats didn't give into a vocal minority who want to supress stuff that everyone else wants? If there were no bureaucracy, there wouldn't be any threat of the product being supressed.

But there is a bureaucracy, and it did the right thing here. Which it often does not.

If there were no bureaucracy, there wouldn't be any threat of the product being supressed.

Well, there'd be no chance of the non-existent bureaucracy suppressing it. Wheeeee, elementary logic!

Your analogies are fallacious.

Way to miss the point.

Of course, in the "Real World" this is what passes for intelligent debate. Congrats.

No, in the real world. this thread is a chance for people worried about top-down political pressure at the FDA to breathe a little easier.


I'm interested in watching real-world politics unfold on a day to day basis. I'm not interested in talking about my personal utopia where everything works exactly like I want.