What’s wrong with artificial gravity created by spinning habitats? The hard part is building an industrial base that works mostly automatically outside of Earth’s gravity well, but once the initial step is done you can start bootstrapping with material collected from asteroids.

Thalidomide is a good example of FDA regulation working, absolutely. What it is not, however, is comprehensive evidence. One drug that was blocked for approval 50 years ago is not enough, not nearly.

That’s quite an impressive argument you put together, but I don’t see any sources. We can reason back and forth as long as we want but if we are both just writing narratives that maybe make sense but are not backed by anything, then what have we gained.

Thank you for your coherent reasoning. My question is simply: where does that balance lie? When it comes to the whole ‘more people die from FDA regulations than are saved by them’ issue, I am only able to find comprehensive data from libertarian sources, which tend to support deregulation of just about anything if…

How does the fact that heart disease and cancer have been around for a long time change how likely they are to be cured? With few exceptions, every disease has been around for a very long time. I’m not saying ‘cut loose all regulations on drugs past Phase I’ because yes, that would be absurd. What I am saying is that…

That is the admitted risk here. According to everybody’s favorite reliable source of information, between 10,000 and 100,000 people were born with birth defects as a result of the drug. That is scary and horrific and the way it was pushed by the Merrell Company does seem galling, but look at the numbers.

That’s a good point. Perhaps a hybrid stage would be smarter. A probationary phase of testing where the drug is allowed on the wider market, but the company must pay to track its performance (maybe some of doctors prescribing it could report on its effects). It is probably pointless to speculate on a proposal that…

I’m not forgetting anything. That’s ‘q’. Also, I haven’t actually endorsed Mr. O’Niell’s proposals (which are at the moment quite vague). If the drug is ineffective and causes a rare side-effect that is indeed a bad outcome. But ‘might’ and ‘could’ are words that can side-step the actual situation. The analysis I…

I’ll tell the families of the ones killed by the drugs if you tell the families of the ones you could have saved. Dead people are the enemy, I want as few as possible.

Yes, you are correct. The question isn’t “will it kill people?”, though, but “will it kill more people?”.

Not quite. From what I understand, the proposal is to remove Phase II or Phase III testing. After passing Phase I (small-scale, controlled human tests), the drug is considered ‘safe’ and Phase II and III are designed to demonstrate that it is effective. The libertarian argument is that if the drugs are safe, the free…