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This makes my point exactly. The cure is to oppose the FDA. (Copied from my post below, just like the OP.) Immoral businesses love regulations because they pro

This makes my point exactly. The cure is to oppose the FDA. (Copied from my post below, just like the OP.) Immoral businesses love regulations because they provide huge barriers to entry for new competitors. Observe how GSK uses the FDA and other regulatory agencies to shield themselves. From the article you linked: "GSK's manufacturing division has a strong track record of quality and compliance with current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) requirements. Various regulatory agencies - including the FDA - conduct an average of more than 100 inspections each year at over 80 GSK manufacturing sites located in over 30 countries. The FDA has raised no material issues as a result of its very thorough inspections. ... GSK worked to bring the Cidra facility to a high level of operating performance that satisfied both GSK and the FDA." We need to separate the state from economics, just like we separate it from church. Unscrupulous companies (not all of them are this way) use and promote regulations to keep their competitors down, and to escape legal reprecussions that they should properly face (just as your article demonstrates). Remember that Enron lobbied for strict price controls on rates charged for access to power grids. (http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2002/04/orourke.htm http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2002/04/orourke....)

ck2 16y ago
The solution is not to remove government regulation, the solution is a "death penalty" for corporations and prison time for dangerous decision makers in corporations. That does not exist in the USA for ANY kind of industry, it's the nutshell of the problem for our entire country.
- maxharris 16y ago
  I once interviewed with a company that wrote medical imaging software. He explained that if anything ever went wrong with their product, their CEO would end up in jail (his words), and I'd be fired. This is for a product that didn't drive any medical equipment, but is regulated by the FDA anyway. Needless to say, I didn't take the job! Your proposal would kill the last ounce of innovation that hasn't been already crushed by the vast number of regulations already in place. When someone is injured or their property is damaged, that's what civil courts are for. When someone is killed intentionally, or by many instances of negligence, we have criminal courts to see that justice is done. All we need is to eliminate the regulations that people (and groups of people) hide behind and let the appropriate court do its job. And in some instances, bad precedent has to be overturned. At any rate, this is a much better idea than legislating and regulating more (which is like trying to dig your way out of a hole.)
  - khafra 16y ago
    I'm confused as to why holding, say, Bayer responsible in criminal court instead of merely civil court for knowingly infecting thousands of people with HIV[1] would stop all medical innovation. [1] http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/03/health/main556653.shtml http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/03/health/main556653....
    - maxharris 16y ago
      If this happened today, you wouldn't need to go after Bayer in this case, just the individuals at Bayer that are responsible. If John, Mike and Jane all belong to the same club, and Mike murders someone while in the bathroom at the club, do you collectively punish the whole club, or do you go after Mike? A corporation is not essentially different in this context. In this case, it's up to a court to decide if people knew enough about HIV in 1984 and 1985 to make the right call. HIV had only been discovered in 1983, and that very little was known about it at the time. It's easy to look at this in hindsight and think badly of them, with everything we've since learned about it, but that's not the standard by which they must be judged because omniscience cannot be the standard of knowledge by which we judge anyone. Putting people in jail outside of this context (e.g., when there isn't any evidence that they've done anything wrong) kills innovation because it severely punishes any risk-taking (which is another word for innovation).
      - Sisyphus_of_IT 16y ago
        But - a corporation is held to be a person. If your left finger pulls the trigger, the whole body is guilty.
        maxharris 16y ago
        No. A corporation is only a group of individuals. The individuals that constitute a coroporation have rights, and the corporation is simply a legally optimized recognition of those rights. Remember, rights are negative, in that proper rights can only prohibit one from initiating political force (violence and fraud) against another. Proper rights do not impose obligations on anyone to create anything for anyone else, because that would be a form of slavery. No sensible person has ever claimed that a corporation is the same thing as a person.
- Sisyphus_of_IT 16y ago
  I believe the corporate death penalty has been a long time coming - there are several 'too big to fail' corps that should face this penalty

ck2 16y ago

The solution is not to remove government regulation, the solution is a "death penalty" for corporations and prison time for dangerous decision makers in corporations. That does not exist in the USA for ANY kind of industry, it's the nutshell of the problem for our entire country.

maxharris 16y ago
I once interviewed with a company that wrote medical imaging software. He explained that if anything ever went wrong with their product, their CEO would end up in jail (his words), and I'd be fired. This is for a product that didn't drive any medical equipment, but is regulated by the FDA anyway. Needless to say, I didn't take the job! Your proposal would kill the last ounce of innovation that hasn't been already crushed by the vast number of regulations already in place. When someone is injured or their property is damaged, that's what civil courts are for. When someone is killed intentionally, or by many instances of negligence, we have criminal courts to see that justice is done. All we need is to eliminate the regulations that people (and groups of people) hide behind and let the appropriate court do its job. And in some instances, bad precedent has to be overturned. At any rate, this is a much better idea than legislating and regulating more (which is like trying to dig your way out of a hole.)
- khafra 16y ago
  I'm confused as to why holding, say, Bayer responsible in criminal court instead of merely civil court for knowingly infecting thousands of people with HIV[1] would stop all medical innovation. [1] http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/03/health/main556653.shtml http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/03/health/main556653....
  - maxharris 16y ago
    If this happened today, you wouldn't need to go after Bayer in this case, just the individuals at Bayer that are responsible. If John, Mike and Jane all belong to the same club, and Mike murders someone while in the bathroom at the club, do you collectively punish the whole club, or do you go after Mike? A corporation is not essentially different in this context. In this case, it's up to a court to decide if people knew enough about HIV in 1984 and 1985 to make the right call. HIV had only been discovered in 1983, and that very little was known about it at the time. It's easy to look at this in hindsight and think badly of them, with everything we've since learned about it, but that's not the standard by which they must be judged because omniscience cannot be the standard of knowledge by which we judge anyone. Putting people in jail outside of this context (e.g., when there isn't any evidence that they've done anything wrong) kills innovation because it severely punishes any risk-taking (which is another word for innovation).
    - Sisyphus_of_IT 16y ago
      But - a corporation is held to be a person. If your left finger pulls the trigger, the whole body is guilty.
      - maxharris 16y ago
        No. A corporation is only a group of individuals. The individuals that constitute a coroporation have rights, and the corporation is simply a legally optimized recognition of those rights. Remember, rights are negative, in that proper rights can only prohibit one from initiating political force (violence and fraud) against another. Proper rights do not impose obligations on anyone to create anything for anyone else, because that would be a form of slavery. No sensible person has ever claimed that a corporation is the same thing as a person.
Sisyphus_of_IT 16y ago
I believe the corporate death penalty has been a long time coming - there are several 'too big to fail' corps that should face this penalty