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Idiosyncratic Drug-induced Liver Injury (DILI) is only 13-20% of all DILI. The other ~80% being pharmacological. About 40% of all acute liver failure is caused by acetaminophen. http://www.nature.com/ajg/journal/v102/n11/full/ajg2007481a....

Meaning a single FDA approved over-the-counter drug is responsible for over 20 times as much liver failure as all dietary supplements. Some regulation may be beneficial but the current policies are clearly suboptimal.

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Acetaminophen is a interesting example - it's a very (centuries) old drug that predates the regulatory framework we have today. Some scholars (see ref. 1 for some history) suggest that it would not be approved by today's FDA.

It's thus a poor selection if one wishes to discredit the FDA's efficacy; indeed, some other widely-used therapeutics (e.g., aspirin) came into use before drug efficacy was required for new drug approval.

At the same time, there are numerous examples of drugs either not approved by the FDA or withdrawn from the US market by the FDA. It's not clear how less regulation would achieve this type of nation-wide safety benefit.

[1] http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/793731/mcneil-history-...

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