3 ms·
I'll give the FDA a lot of credit for things like blocking thalidomide from the US in the 1950s and 1960s (looks like Richardson-Merrell was pushing hard for U
by jmount 12y ago
I'll give the FDA a lot of credit for things like blocking thalidomide from the US in the 1950s and 1960s (looks like Richardson-Merrell was pushing hard for US sales after it had already caused a disaster and been banned in Germany) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide . Like all things you have to balance the harm and good.
- toolz 12y agoThe FDA has a ton of power and resources. I would be highly surprised if they didn't have a large numbers of victories, but in relation to their power and resources it doesn't take much bias to find them lacking.
- Houshalter 12y agoEven though they've stopped bad drugs, they've also stopped good ones. If you look at the net benefit of the FDA it's negative. Not that we shouldn't have any any drug approval process, just that the current one is too conservative. The reason for the conservatism is simple. Everyone sees when bad drugs get through. It gets media attention, there are lawsuits, laws are proposed to retrospectively fix it, etc. But no one cares or even notices when a life saving drug is delayed or prevented from getting to those who need it. And so there will always be extreme bias towards conservatism and we need to fight it.