I watched someone die of cancer possibly years too soon because it took Genentech an extra two years to get approval for Avastin for his condition, volunteered

I watched someone die of cancer possibly years too soon because it took Genentech an extra two years to get approval for Avastin for his condition, volunteered for a patients rights NGO, and worked in several companies heavily regulated by the FDA. I know all too well about the cost in human lives of not just the FDA but the companies who gouge customers on the cost of insurance, medical equipment, and even the basic technology needed to look closely at a cell in an academic lab. You can talk about the economics of human lives but the reality is simple: removing the FDA won't bring on a Golden Age of medicine that will bring back the dead. Instead, the companies developing the medicine that can actually save people, companies that are now "delayed" and overburdened by regulation, will be beaten down by a market of charlatans with big marketing budgets and limited liability. Thanks to Facebook, I know of half a dozen former classmates who have close relatives that lost years of their lives because they chose to listen to some neo naturalist instead of their oncologist. That is the alternative. It already exists and destroying the FDA would unleash the flood of crazy that it has tried, with so little actual support, to hold back for all these years.