4 ms·

Getting a drug approved by the FDA is pretty expensive. Abolishing the FDA, thereby reducing the cost of introducing the drug, might be the real solution here.

arkades 8y ago
I find public health inspectors also make it more expensive to run a restaurant. Perhaps the solution to their tight margins would be to abolish health inspections.
- Fnoord 8y ago
  While you're at it, tax makes it more difficult to run a business and making a living. Let us abolish tax as well.
  - patricius 8y ago
    I agree. Just because a thing exists (the FDA or taxes for instance), doesn't make it a good thing.
    - jcora 8y ago
      Wow look, an ancap in 2018!
      - patricius 8y ago
        Yeah. I feel pretty lonely here... :'(
        logfromblammo 8y ago
        Anarcho-capitalism largely depends on a belief that human nature is essentially good, and prone to spontaneous cooperation. It is also heavily dependent on reputation, which scales poorly, or on trustless technologies, which aren't yet mature. I'm still anarchist in 2018, but I haven't been anywhere near the an-cap territory of it since around 2006. Sticking to a political dogma out in the libertarian hinterlands is really only good for pointlessly arguing with other libertarians on the Internet. That can be fun sometimes, but it's not as entertaining as it used to be, what with everyone pointing at Twitler and saying "You see? This is exactly as (insert libertarian variant) predicted!"
        miragle 8y ago
        Anarcho-capitalism largely depends on a belief that human nature is essentially bad, and that magically, goodness manifests itself from the concentration of badness.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
    - Fnoord 8y ago
      Although I don't disagree with your point, that wasn't my point. My point is that these things have different aspects (some of which are arguably useful, some perhaps in your eyes less so or not) but removing them has serious consequences. It is easy to be against something (for example, paying taxes) but removing taxation has serious consequences which have to be accounted for.
      - logfromblammo 8y ago
        Keeping them as they are also has serious consequences that are rarely examined, or even raised for consideration. The public interest is for medical treatments to have the following qualities: safe, effective, affordable. The business interest for healthcare providers is for medical treatments to have the following property: profitable. Those interests only partially overlap. It is possible to imagine many different institutional architectures that cater to the public's interests, and a large number of them are theoretically better than the actual results yielded from the FDA and the rest of the modern American health care system. Thus, one of the consequences of maintaining the status quo is the foregone advantage of moving to a different and wholly incompatible system. That's the kind of argument only an economist could love, because it ties your brain up in knots trying to figure it out, and you can plausibly justify any prejudicial opinion you might care to support.
        Fnoord 8y ago
        > Keeping them as they are also has serious consequences that are rarely examined, or even raised for consideration. Yes, but the burden of proof lies with those who prefer an alternative. If you want to demonstrate an alternative is better, you need an honest and in depth comparison with the current. Just saying "the current sucks" isn't an argument. I do agree it is difficult for drugs like ketamine, psilocybin, and MDMA(/MDA/MDE/etc) to get research funding, but that doesn't mean the current options are useless; we know they are useful, just not in every case. Nor does it mean that those mentioned drugs are better; we do not know.
        patricius 8y ago
- patricius 8y ago
  I agree
- kingofhdds 8y ago
  >abolish health inspections. Well, it would be interesting to look at impartial cost/efficiency research regarding "health inspections". I routinely travel to countries where those inspections are just a pure formality, or completely non-existent - and, I must say, in most cases there's no trouble finding a good, safe place to eat.
ergothus 8y ago
Honest question: consumers are notoriously ill-informed, companies are good at propaganda and fake "clinical" evidence, and finding out if medicines ate effective AND safe is really complex. How do you imagine abolishing the FDA would improve outcomes instead of increasing supplies (and marketing) of snake oil?
- patricius 8y ago
  You know who is also good at propaganda? Government and state. Can you prove that FDA improves the outcome? Is FDA somehow free from lobbying, or are the people working there consistently uninfluenced by certain counterproductive incentives? How could we go about ever proving that the absence or existence of a government agency has improved conditions overall? Sorry if this comes off as lecturing, but these are questions that I think should be asked and is not intended for you specifically. In any case, you cannot take away that FDA approval likely costs millions of dollars and makes it more costly to introduce a drug. It is self-evident that making something more expensive to do reduces the incentive to do it (weighed against the potential profit).
  - ergothus 8y ago
    > It is self-evident that making something more expensive to do reduces the incentive to do it (weighed against the potential profit). No argument - but you didn't answer my questions at all other than to say "FDA is fallible!" I can't prove the FDA is non-evil/non-fallible. I don't have numbers to share, so I'm going off of very fallible impressions. However, those impressions are that the FDA has done a better job of keeping crappy products off the market than a free-market world. You complain about the opposite - good products being prevented because of lack of incentives. It's impossible to measure what hasn't happened, but do we have evidence that lack of incentive cause more harm than preventing crap/toxic/poisonous products that we have a recorded history of? We have a solution today, a solution with problems, but a solution that I'm confident is better than the original problem. What is your basis to claim that removing the solution will in fact be better than the problem?

arkades 8y ago

I find public health inspectors also make it more expensive to run a restaurant. Perhaps the solution to their tight margins would be to abolish health inspections.

Fnoord 8y ago
While you're at it, tax makes it more difficult to run a business and making a living. Let us abolish tax as well.
- patricius 8y ago
  I agree. Just because a thing exists (the FDA or taxes for instance), doesn't make it a good thing.
  - jcora 8y ago
    Wow look, an ancap in 2018!
    - patricius 8y ago
      Yeah. I feel pretty lonely here... :'(
      - logfromblammo 8y ago
        Anarcho-capitalism largely depends on a belief that human nature is essentially good, and prone to spontaneous cooperation. It is also heavily dependent on reputation, which scales poorly, or on trustless technologies, which aren't yet mature. I'm still anarchist in 2018, but I haven't been anywhere near the an-cap territory of it since around 2006. Sticking to a political dogma out in the libertarian hinterlands is really only good for pointlessly arguing with other libertarians on the Internet. That can be fun sometimes, but it's not as entertaining as it used to be, what with everyone pointing at Twitler and saying "You see? This is exactly as (insert libertarian variant) predicted!"
        miragle 8y ago
        Anarcho-capitalism largely depends on a belief that human nature is essentially bad, and that magically, goodness manifests itself from the concentration of badness.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
  - Fnoord 8y ago
    Although I don't disagree with your point, that wasn't my point. My point is that these things have different aspects (some of which are arguably useful, some perhaps in your eyes less so or not) but removing them has serious consequences. It is easy to be against something (for example, paying taxes) but removing taxation has serious consequences which have to be accounted for.
    - logfromblammo 8y ago
      Keeping them as they are also has serious consequences that are rarely examined, or even raised for consideration. The public interest is for medical treatments to have the following qualities: safe, effective, affordable. The business interest for healthcare providers is for medical treatments to have the following property: profitable. Those interests only partially overlap. It is possible to imagine many different institutional architectures that cater to the public's interests, and a large number of them are theoretically better than the actual results yielded from the FDA and the rest of the modern American health care system. Thus, one of the consequences of maintaining the status quo is the foregone advantage of moving to a different and wholly incompatible system. That's the kind of argument only an economist could love, because it ties your brain up in knots trying to figure it out, and you can plausibly justify any prejudicial opinion you might care to support.
      - Fnoord 8y ago
        > Keeping them as they are also has serious consequences that are rarely examined, or even raised for consideration. Yes, but the burden of proof lies with those who prefer an alternative. If you want to demonstrate an alternative is better, you need an honest and in depth comparison with the current. Just saying "the current sucks" isn't an argument. I do agree it is difficult for drugs like ketamine, psilocybin, and MDMA(/MDA/MDE/etc) to get research funding, but that doesn't mean the current options are useless; we know they are useful, just not in every case. Nor does it mean that those mentioned drugs are better; we do not know.
        patricius 8y ago
patricius 8y ago
I agree
kingofhdds 8y ago
>abolish health inspections. Well, it would be interesting to look at impartial cost/efficiency research regarding "health inspections". I routinely travel to countries where those inspections are just a pure formality, or completely non-existent - and, I must say, in most cases there's no trouble finding a good, safe place to eat.

ergothus 8y ago

Honest question: consumers are notoriously ill-informed, companies are good at propaganda and fake "clinical" evidence, and finding out if medicines ate effective AND safe is really complex. How do you imagine abolishing the FDA would improve outcomes instead of increasing supplies (and marketing) of snake oil?

patricius 8y ago
You know who is also good at propaganda? Government and state. Can you prove that FDA improves the outcome? Is FDA somehow free from lobbying, or are the people working there consistently uninfluenced by certain counterproductive incentives? How could we go about ever proving that the absence or existence of a government agency has improved conditions overall? Sorry if this comes off as lecturing, but these are questions that I think should be asked and is not intended for you specifically. In any case, you cannot take away that FDA approval likely costs millions of dollars and makes it more costly to introduce a drug. It is self-evident that making something more expensive to do reduces the incentive to do it (weighed against the potential profit).
- ergothus 8y ago
  > It is self-evident that making something more expensive to do reduces the incentive to do it (weighed against the potential profit). No argument - but you didn't answer my questions at all other than to say "FDA is fallible!" I can't prove the FDA is non-evil/non-fallible. I don't have numbers to share, so I'm going off of very fallible impressions. However, those impressions are that the FDA has done a better job of keeping crappy products off the market than a free-market world. You complain about the opposite - good products being prevented because of lack of incentives. It's impossible to measure what hasn't happened, but do we have evidence that lack of incentive cause more harm than preventing crap/toxic/poisonous products that we have a recorded history of? We have a solution today, a solution with problems, but a solution that I'm confident is better than the original problem. What is your basis to claim that removing the solution will in fact be better than the problem?