Abolish FDA?

The perennial talk about privatizing FDA is in the air again.  What do they want to do?  ABOLISH THE FOOD & DRUG ADMINISTRATION.  You need to be prepared for what’s coming.  Your health is at stake.

As you read this, keep in mind that ALL DRUGS HAVE SIDE EFFECTS.  Paracelsus said, “It is simply the dose that distinguishes between a poison and a remedy.”

Let’s briefly look at the hallucinations that are being used for excuses and then quickly expose them for the steaming piles of duplicity that they are:

• First it says that “Many seriously ill people die waiting for the FDA to approve drugs that regulators in other advanced countries have already approved, a phenomenon called drug lag.”  If you actually read the link you find out that today that problem is primarily in Japan, not western countries.  Over time it is being reduced due to harmonization of requirements among industrialized countries.  In the end, though, you would be better off waiting for US-FDA approval of a drug rather than taking it immediately after it’s been approved by Lower Slobovia.
• Second “…pharmaceutical companies must divert excessive research and development dollars to the drug approval process, a phenomenon called drug loss.”  NONSENSE.  The major cost of the ‘drug approval process’ is the clinical trials that prove that it works.  Filing out the paperwork to prove to FDA that the company conducted those trials correctly is minor by comparison.  Knowing what you know about business, would you just trust them to test the drug without a watchdog?
• Third, the article says that physicians are allowed to prescribe drugs off-label for diseases other than their FDA-approved intended use.  And since the physicians are allowed to use their own discretion for off-label use, therefore they should be able to prescribe ANY drug for any use without FDA’s approval.  This is misleading.  Any approved drug has already been proven to be safe for its intended use.  So, the risk of doing harm by using an approved drug off-label is low.   Furthermore, few physicians are trained to evaluate clinical data to determine whether drugs are safe and effective.  We as Americans have hired specialists to do that for us.  Those specialists are called the FDA.
• Lastly, the article resurrects the ubiquitous PRIVATIZATION.  Don’t be fooled.  Replacing FDA with for-profit companies will result in a reversal of the power flow in the relationship between drug suppliers and approvers.  FDA gets most of its money from taxpayers (the people it’s trying to protect).  If FDA is replaced by private companies, power would be in the hands of the suppliers who are paying the bills.

If you’re a taxpayer, your best bet is to keep the power in your own hands.  Yes, FDA's costs come out of your taxes.  But if FDA is privatized, the cost of whatever approval fees the manufacturer pays will certainly get passed along to you in drug costs.