>The FDA has probably caused more deaths in the past half century than all of the rest of the American state put together, wars and all, by slowing progress in medicine, making all sorts of avenues for research and development unprofitable, and making medicine that does exist far more expensive.
As long as we're throwing around bullshit: false hope and pseudoscience has caused more unnecessary death at the hands of tricksters and con men in the past two thousand years than all wars humans have fought or ever will fight.
Having worked in biotech I was never a fan of some (or many) of the FDA's policies but I found this insulting. You have no clue how hard it is to develop any medicine that doesn't harm the first few patients you give it to, let alone one that actually reaches the market to help thousands or millions. You have no clue what it is like to be the only gatekeeper between a $900 billion industry working on some of the hardest scientific problems of our time and 300 million people. Almost all of whom want their cake, to eat it now, and for the calories to magically disappear from their gastrointestinal tract.
The FDA is not a product of pharmaceutical companies, it is a product of a political system made of voters like you who decide their policies based on Libertarian pamphlets, Fox News, and Reddit. A political system that allows pharmaceutical companies to selectively withhold data, that has gutted the basic scientific research institutions that allows pharma to finance billion dollar ventures, and that mercilessly punishes any mistake that it itself is supposed to catch.
You get what you vote for.
As long as we're throwing around bullshit: false hope and pseudoscience has caused more unnecessary death at the hands of tricksters and con men in the past two thousand years than all wars humans have fought or ever will fight.
Having worked in biotech I was never a fan of some (or many) of the FDA's policies but I found this insulting. You have no clue how hard it is to develop any medicine that doesn't harm the first few patients you give it to, let alone one that actually reaches the market to help thousands or millions. You have no clue what it is like to be the only gatekeeper between a $900 billion industry working on some of the hardest scientific problems of our time and 300 million people. Almost all of whom want their cake, to eat it now, and for the calories to magically disappear from their gastrointestinal tract.
The FDA is not a product of pharmaceutical companies, it is a product of a political system made of voters like you who decide their policies based on Libertarian pamphlets, Fox News, and Reddit. A political system that allows pharmaceutical companies to selectively withhold data, that has gutted the basic scientific research institutions that allows pharma to finance billion dollar ventures, and that mercilessly punishes any mistake that it itself is supposed to catch.
You get what you vote for.