The FDA
October 11, 2006According to a recent article on Reuters, there has been a push for FDA safety reforms:
Editors at a major medical journal and members of a drug-safety advisory panel joined calls on Monday for major changes to improve the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s oversight of medicines on the market.
If you read the article it is obvious that these ‘professionals’ want more laws giving the FDA more power and more money to regulate the food and drug industries. If these so-called professionals were really worried about the health and safety of the American people they would allow the free-market regulate these industries. If a privately owned organization provided ratings for foods, for instance, they would be held responsible for making bad decisions. The government, on the other hand, is never held responsible for mistakes they make.
As far as drugs go, they should all be sold over the counter and the drug war should be ended immediately. As a consumer, you should be responsible for what you put into your own body. If you believe you know what drug you need then you should be able to purchase it on your own, without the need of a prescription from a doctor. The current FDA regulations require that the drug companies shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars to get their drugs tested and approved. Without these regulations, drugs would become significantly cheaper and new companies could be started in order to compete with the current monopolies. Presently, it is almost impossible for new companies to raise enough money to get their drugs approved.
All laws restricting the possesion and use of any drug should be legalized. Once again (and I can not stress this enough), it is each persons individual right to do whatever they please to their own body. Any law restricting this is a direct violation our natural rights. I know that a lot of people think ‘I am not a drug user so this doesn’t affect me’, but you could not be farther from the truth. Drug related crimes are a direct effect of the war on drugs. If drugs were legalized there would be no black market and no drug related crime. If you look back at the prohibition of alcohol there were gangsters that sold alcohol to the people who wanted it. When there is a product that is in demand, the market will provide for it whether it is illegal or not. When the product is illegal however, the black market creates a culture of violence around that product. This is why there should be no laws that restrict the freedoms of the American people. No. Scratch that. There should be no laws in this country that restrict the freedoms of any human being.
I don’t know if people would be able to handle that though. Doctors have years of schooling to learn what all the medicine does. Not that I even really think we need most of the pharmacuticals that we use anyway. People know what alcohol will do to them, they know the risks. The same doesn’t go for parmaceuticals. Yes they are too expensive and yes they are sold on the black market. The parmaceutical companies are business owners, they want to make money and so they charge a lot of money. I believe our world is sicker because of parmaceuticals. Yes they do help sometimes but i find so many people are taking more and more to cover up the side effects of the other drugs they’re taking. I’d rather see them gone than having drug crazed people get their hands on the easily. Sometimes popping a pill isn’t going to really heal anything, I guess some people like to bandaid things.
While I do agree that in general there are too many drugs out there, I do not believe it is the governments place to regulate this. They should not steal my money in order to fund organizations that destroy basic liberties. You say that the companies want to make money so the prices are high, but again this is not entirely true. Of course the companies want to make money, but when they have to give money to the government to test the drugs, that cost has to be passed onto the consumer. I myself do not like to take unnecessary medications, but sometimes I know what I need without consulting a doctor. There are many places to find out the effects of drugs if you wanted to yourself. If not, you would still be free to consult a doctor to get his recommendation. Thats the beauty of the free market. Thats the beauty of true liberty and freedom. I encourage you to keep reading this blog. You just might start agree with some things. Most people truly love liberty at heart.
They do have to pay a lot of money to get the drugs tested because if the FDA wasn’t paid a lot they wouldn’t approve the drug. Money money money.