6 ms·

that's nonsense. It's like saying the monopoly of the FBI in enforcing federal law is a public safety issue.

by luckydata 7y ago

James_Henry 7y ago
If there aren't checks and balances, then what do you expect?
- jdashg 7y ago
  Legislation and regulatory oversight oversight. Everyone answers to someone.
  - hpoe 7y ago
    But if everyone answers to everyone, eventually no one answers to anyone because everyone was held up by someone else who was waiting for someone else.
missedthecue 7y ago
It's not nonsense. A couple years back, the FDA had a press release where they admitted they killed 1 million people. They had finally cleared a heart attack prevention drug for sale in the US that had already been legal and approved and prescribed in the EU for 10 years prior. In the press release, the FDA said that as a result of their benevolent approval, the drug would save 100,000 people a year.
- CodeAndCuffs 7y ago
  Wasn't there a drug that all of Europe said was super safe, but the FDA held out on for years, and it ended up causing terrible birth defects? It's easy to say that a group is unnecessarily cautious/reckless until that cautiousness/recklessness saves lives or kills people. Hindsight 20/20 and all.
  - missedthecue 7y ago
    That was Thalidomide and it was legal in the US. At any rate my point wasn't that the FDA only makes bad decisions. My point was that it has a monopoly on approving new medicines and therepeutics, and it is not at all clear that this monopoly is a net good or net bad. (And it's impossible to measure because we can't tell how thing would have played out for things that never happened)
  - BurningFrog 7y ago
    There are two kinds of errors an FDA type agency can make: A: Approve a drug that turns out to be a "cure worse than the disease", and shouldn't have been approved. B: Not approve a drug that would have cured many sick and/or saved a lot of lives. You can never fully know beforehand which error a decision will have. So the FDA will always gamble a bit in their decisions. And here is the gigantic problem: With a type A error, patients taking the new drug dies, there is an uproar in the media, the agency takes a big beating, and careers are ruined. With a type B error, a lot of people who could have been saved dies. But that is no change from before, no one notices, and the careers of FDA officials are unharmed. Given these incentives, it is not surprising that the FDA overwhelmingly errs on the side of type B errors. It's hard to compute, but the number of lost lives from this is probably in the millions since the 60s.
    - dantheman 7y ago
      In type A, people have a choice. They could be informed there is a risk. In type b, they have no choice.
      - sharemywin 7y ago
        And who provides the neutral informed accessible information? and there's the rub with modern society. No one could possibly be expected to be an expert in every field and sub field.
        BurningFrog 7y ago
BurningFrog 7y ago
The sentences look similar. But that doesn't mean the underlying reality is equivalent.

that's nonsense. It's like saying the monopoly of the FBI in enforcing federal law is a public safety issue.

James_Henry 7y ago

If there aren't checks and balances, then what do you expect?

jdashg 7y ago
Legislation and regulatory oversight oversight. Everyone answers to someone.
- hpoe 7y ago
  But if everyone answers to everyone, eventually no one answers to anyone because everyone was held up by someone else who was waiting for someone else.

missedthecue 7y ago

It's not nonsense. A couple years back, the FDA had a press release where they admitted they killed 1 million people. They had finally cleared a heart attack prevention drug for sale in the US that had already been legal and approved and prescribed in the EU for 10 years prior. In the press release, the FDA said that as a result of their benevolent approval, the drug would save 100,000 people a year.

CodeAndCuffs 7y ago
Wasn't there a drug that all of Europe said was super safe, but the FDA held out on for years, and it ended up causing terrible birth defects? It's easy to say that a group is unnecessarily cautious/reckless until that cautiousness/recklessness saves lives or kills people. Hindsight 20/20 and all.
- missedthecue 7y ago
  That was Thalidomide and it was legal in the US. At any rate my point wasn't that the FDA only makes bad decisions. My point was that it has a monopoly on approving new medicines and therepeutics, and it is not at all clear that this monopoly is a net good or net bad. (And it's impossible to measure because we can't tell how thing would have played out for things that never happened)
- BurningFrog 7y ago
  There are two kinds of errors an FDA type agency can make: A: Approve a drug that turns out to be a "cure worse than the disease", and shouldn't have been approved. B: Not approve a drug that would have cured many sick and/or saved a lot of lives. You can never fully know beforehand which error a decision will have. So the FDA will always gamble a bit in their decisions. And here is the gigantic problem: With a type A error, patients taking the new drug dies, there is an uproar in the media, the agency takes a big beating, and careers are ruined. With a type B error, a lot of people who could have been saved dies. But that is no change from before, no one notices, and the careers of FDA officials are unharmed. Given these incentives, it is not surprising that the FDA overwhelmingly errs on the side of type B errors. It's hard to compute, but the number of lost lives from this is probably in the millions since the 60s.
  - dantheman 7y ago
    In type A, people have a choice. They could be informed there is a risk. In type b, they have no choice.
    - sharemywin 7y ago
      And who provides the neutral informed accessible information? and there's the rub with modern society. No one could possibly be expected to be an expert in every field and sub field.
      - BurningFrog 7y ago

BurningFrog 7y ago

The sentences look similar. But that doesn't mean the underlying reality is equivalent.