An important thing to remember when thinking about this thing: the downside of approving a drug that was dangerous is bounded: it kills people or causes some un

An important thing to remember when thinking about this thing: the downside of approving a drug that was dangerous is bounded: it kills people or causes some unexpected side effect and then it gets pulled. Meanwhile, the downside of failing to approve something that could have saved/improved lives is at least potentially unbounded: if it never gets approved that's the entire futures worth of humanity who is unable to take advantage of it (although admittedly I'd like to imagine that _eventually_ tech will improve to the point that we either figure out we should approve the drug and/or invent something else that obviates the need). The point is that case B is both harder to notice and at least potentially _much_ worse than case A. And it's the case that the FDA currently errs towards.