>Wasn't that one of the FDA's big victories? Perhaps you mean the FDA is far to powerful because of that win. depends who you ask. Milton Friedman used the th

>Wasn't that one of the FDA's big victories? Perhaps you mean the FDA is far to powerful because of that win. depends who you ask. Milton Friedman used the thalidomide reaction as a case-book example of government meddling in the private sector where it needn't be, causing vast delay in possible new therapeutics, which basically created an unquantifiable loss of value due to us being unaware of "what could have been without bureaucratic delay". Friedman believed that if a company does sufficient harm to a population that the negative market signal will eventually destroy the 'bad-actor' company, without the need for anything like the FDA and the delays it imposes[0] I don't know whether or not he's right. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUDV0YII6lk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUDV0YII6lk