> This is plainly wrong. Free markets allow for testing and approval agencies which do not need to be run by the government. Yes, they allow multiple competing

> This is plainly wrong. Free markets allow for testing and approval agencies which do not need to be run by the government. Yes, they allow multiple competing agencies, each of which approves a different list of products, none of which is obligated in the slightest to reveal who pays for what. Libertarians love to rail about regulatory capture, then they propose a system where companies can literally secretly own private regulatory agencies. > Do not forget that there have been drug and food safety issues under the FDA's watch, and each time, there has been little to no accountability. You have very little idea how bad it was prior to the FDA, in the snake oil era, and how much the FDA does to ensure safe and effective medications and foods. Yes, it's imperfect. The solution to imperfection isn't to tear it down and start over. It's to fix what's wrong, to invest the time and mental effort to improve things. Yes, this is harder than just letting the businesses run the whole shop. However, we tried that, during the Gilded Age, and it didn't work, so now we have to improve a system we know works better.