Because Kaepernick’s protests aren’t about slavery.

I don’t think it’s drastically different enough to lose sight of the fact that they approach medicine with far less inertia when it comes to a number of things — like technology and innovation, medical education (where we are woefully regressive), and streamlining regulation. The Netherlands medical establishment, for…

Also, just to add to the “lunacy” comment — let’s not pretend that this is a new debate out of left field. The extent by which regulatory oversight of drug and device discovery impacts patients has been debated for decades. I recall an editorial in Science (or Nature?) about 7 years ago that was a scathing critique of…

“That is completely untrue, the FDA does not provide legal protection to pharmaceuticals”

No, I want to make our jobs easier. Instead of relying on GSK to tell us that their latest wonder drug works (wink wink), we should be consulting peer-reviewed literature combined with our own thorough understanding of the biological mechanisms of disease. Anybody who relies on drug and device company studies to…

And Hayek?

What about the libertarians who won the Nobel Prize in economics? Would they disagree with themselves?

Exactly. If only we had healthcare experts in this country that you could make an appointment with and ask their advice on “natural cures” and other bullshit.

“Anyone even remotely involved in the process knows this will lead to more deaths and disfigurement”

The FDA, like the EPA in the BP oil spill, implicitly protects corporations from prosecution. Companies are then able to hide behind FDA/EPA regulations when they knowingly market a bad product or when they do something stupid. We saw this with the BP disaster. People who believe in consumer rights should be critical…

“Its economic philosophies are empirically bankrupt.”

If you’re relying on a vested interest (corporations) to provide scientific rationale for the thing they’re trying to sell, you’re already on shaky ground. This is why most physicians consult peer-reviewed independent testing of drugs and devices, which will continue to exist. If your physician listens to company…

The rational person would consult their doctor before making that decision.

The company who demonstrates efficacy is usually going to persuade physicians to tout their drugs and devices over the company who does not demonstrate efficacy as convincingly. That’s how it works today, and that’s how it would work if we loosened efficacy requirements.

They already do in almost every other field. Look at the tech sector for a great example of this.

No, the article is about efficacy, not safety.

That’s where getting good advice from your physician comes in.

Can somebody tie together the logical discrepancy of this article? On the one hand, the author quotes that O’Neill believes that drugs and devices should be approved “after their sponsors have demonstrated safety.” But on the other hand the author implies that these policies could have an adverse impact on safety.…

I don’t know anything about this guy. But from the article, it appears he said “after their sponsors have demonstrated safety.” I think it’s hard to demonstrate safety of poison.

For you. But not for a lot of other people. Some people really ARE all about the music.