Logical Arguments to Abolish the FDA
Abolishing a government agency might seem to be a drastic step. However, when it comes to the FDA, there are a number of quite logical arguments in favor of this idea.
Milton Friedman says Abolish the FDA
Milton Friedman, Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences says we should abolish the FDA.
Here is a quote from his interview with Peter Robinson of Uncommon Knowledge.
ROBINSON The Food and Drug Administration which regulates everything from the drugs that pharmaceutical companies may put on the market to the ingredients in items we purchase off the grocery store shelves. Let me give you an example- Thalidomide [ FRIEDMAN Everybody's favorite example...] Well I may be leading with my chin on this one but I'm going to lead with it anyway. 50's and 60's it is marketed in Europe as a drug to help women get through the nausea that they sometimes experience during pregnancy. The Food and Drug Administration said it had been inadequately tested in the United States and forbade it to be marketed in this country with the result that thousands of children were born with horrible birth defects in Europe to mothers who had used Thalidomide but that didn't happen to American children, because the FDA had intervened and kept that drug off the market. Thank god for the FDA, right? FRIEDMAN Wrong [ ROBINSON Alright, why?] this is a case in which they did save lives, this was a good case, but suppose they are equally slow in adopting a drug which turns out to be very good and beneficial. How would you ever see the lives that are lost because of that? You're an FDA official, you have a question of whether to approve or disapprove a new drug. If you approve it and it turns out to be a bad drug like Thalidomide, you're in the soup, your name is going to be on every front page
[ ROBINSON cost me my job, I get hauled up to Congress to testify..] right.
On the other hand if you disapprove it, but it turns out to be good, well then later on you approve it four or five years later, nobody's going to complain about the fact that you didn't approve it earlier except those greedy pharmaceutical companies that want make profits at the expense of the public, as everybody will say. So the result is that the pressure on the FDA is always to be late in approving. And there's enormous evidence that they have caused more deaths by late approvals than they have saved by early approval. ROBINSONSo your view is abolish the FDA. FRIEDMANAbsolutely [ ROBINSON And what comes up in its place?] what comes up? It's in the self-interest of pharmaceutical companies not to have these bad things. Do you think the manufacturer of Thalidomide made a profit out of Thalidomide or lost? [ ROBINSON I see, ok.] And you have to have..people should be responsible for harm that they do. It should've been possible...[ ROBINSON So tort law takes care of a lot of this.] Absolutely, absolutely.. ROBINSON Alright, if Lilly or Merck comes up with a drug that does me harm, I go after them, I join a class action with everybody else who's taken that pill and we sue them for billions of dollars and wipe out their share holders equity. Seeing that, they have every interest to be extremely rigorous in testing that drug before they make it available. Jeffrey Dach MD
4700 Sheridan Suite T
Hollywood Fl 33021
954-983-1443
www.jeffreydach.com
www.drdach.com
www.naturalmedicine101.com
www.truemedmd.com
References
http://www.hoover.org/multimedia/uk/3411401.html
TAKE IT TO THE LIMITS: Milton Friedman on Libertarianism
Filmed on February 10, 1999 http://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=279
Economists Against the FDA September 1, 2000
Daniel B. Klein NewsMax.com http://www.lewrockwell.com/grichar/grichar17.html
Abolish the FDA!!
by Jim Grichar (aka Exx-Gman) http://wiki.freetalklive.com/User:Zpippin/essays/Abolish_the_FDA
Abolish the FDA http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2007/05/16/time-to-get-rid-of-the-fda/ Time to Get Rid of the FDA http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg27699.html
ABOLISH THE FDA?--YES! http://curecancersource.com/fda-indicts-itself-061508.html
The FDA Indicts Itself By William Faloon William Faloon http://www.extle.com/2008/07/why-i-would-eliminate-fda-example-on.html
Friday, July 18, 2008 Why I would eliminate the FDA - An example on how the Government can kill you
(c) 2008 Jeffrey Dach MD All Rights Reserved This article may be reproduced on the internet without permission, provided there is a link to this page and proper credit is given. | 
Logical Arguments to Abolish the FDA
Abolishing a government agency might seem to be a drastic step. However, when it comes to the FDA, there are a number of quite logical arguments in favor of this idea.
Milton Friedman says Abolish the FDA
Milton Friedman, Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences says we should abolish the FDA.
Here is a quote from his interview with Peter Robinson of Uncommon Knowledge.
ROBINSON The Food and Drug Administration which regulates everything from the drugs that pharmaceutical companies may put on the market to the ingredients in items we purchase off the grocery store shelves. Let me give you an example- Thalidomide [ FRIEDMAN Everybody's favorite example...] Well I may be leading with my chin on this one but I'm going to lead with it anyway. 50's and 60's it is marketed in Europe as a drug to help women get through the nausea that they sometimes experience during pregnancy. The Food and Drug Administration said it had been inadequately tested in the United States and forbade it to be marketed in this country with the result that thousands of children were born with horrible birth defects in Europe to mothers who had used Thalidomide but that didn't happen to American children, because the FDA had intervened and kept that drug off the market. Thank god for the FDA, right?
FRIEDMAN Wrong [ ROBINSON Alright, why?] this is a case in which they did save lives, this was a good case, but suppose they are equally slow in adopting a drug which turns out to be very good and beneficial. How would you ever see the lives that are lost because of that? You're an FDA official, you have a question of whether to approve or disapprove a new drug. If you approve it and it turns out to be a bad drug like Thalidomide, you're in the soup, your name is going to be on every front page
[ ROBINSON cost me my job, I get hauled up to Congress to testify..] right.
On the other hand if you disapprove it, but it turns out to be good, well then later on you approve it four or five years later, nobody's going to complain about the fact that you didn't approve it earlier except those greedy pharmaceutical companies that want make profits at the expense of the public, as everybody will say. So the result is that the pressure on the FDA is always to be late in approving. And there's enormous evidence that they have caused more deaths by late approvals than they have saved by early approval.
ROBINSONSo your view is abolish the FDA.
FRIEDMANAbsolutely [ ROBINSON And what comes up in its place?] what comes up? It's in the self-interest of pharmaceutical companies not to have these bad things. Do you think the manufacturer of Thalidomide made a profit out of Thalidomide or lost? [ ROBINSON I see, ok.] And you have to have..people should be responsible for harm that they do. It should've been possible...[ ROBINSON So tort law takes care of a lot of this.] Absolutely, absolutely..
ROBINSON Alright, if Lilly or Merck comes up with a drug that does me harm, I go after them, I join a class action with everybody else who's taken that pill and we sue them for billions of dollars and wipe out their share holders equity. Seeing that, they have every interest to be extremely rigorous in testing that drug before they make it available.
Jeffrey Dach MD
4700 Sheridan Suite T
Hollywood Fl 33021
954-983-1443
www.jeffreydach.com
www.drdach.com
www.naturalmedicine101.com
www.truemedmd.com
References
http://www.hoover.org/multimedia/uk/3411401.html
TAKE IT TO THE LIMITS: Milton Friedman on Libertarianism
Filmed on February 10, 1999
http://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=279
Economists Against the FDA September 1, 2000
Daniel B. Klein NewsMax.com
http://www.lewrockwell.com/grichar/grichar17.html
Abolish the FDA!!
by Jim Grichar (aka Exx-Gman)
http://wiki.freetalklive.com/User:Zpippin/essays/Abolish_the_FDA
Abolish the FDA
http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2007/05/16/time-to-get-rid-of-the-fda/
Time to Get Rid of the FDA
http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg27699.html
ABOLISH THE FDA?--YES!
http://curecancersource.com/fda-indicts-itself-061508.html
The FDA Indicts Itself By William Faloon William Faloon
http://www.extle.com/2008/07/why-i-would-eliminate-fda-example-on.html
Friday, July 18, 2008 Why I would eliminate the FDA - An example on how the Government can kill you
(c) 2008 Jeffrey Dach MD All Rights Reserved This article may be reproduced on the internet without permission, provided there is a link to this page and proper credit is given.