Acetaminophen is a interesting example - it's a very (centuries) old drug that predates the regulatory framework we have today. Some scholars (see ref. 1 for so

Acetaminophen is a interesting example - it's a very (centuries) old drug that predates the regulatory framework we have today. Some scholars (see ref. 1 for some history) suggest that it would not be approved by today's FDA. It's thus a poor selection if one wishes to discredit the FDA's efficacy; indeed, some other widely-used therapeutics (e.g., aspirin) came into use before drug efficacy was required for new drug approval. At the same time, there are numerous examples of drugs either not approved by the FDA or withdrawn from the US market by the FDA. It's not clear how less regulation would achieve this type of nation-wide safety benefit. [1] http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/793731/mcneil-history-by-students.pdf http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/793731/mcneil-history-...