But please consider this:
How many people’s lives could have been saved if FDA regulations didn’t make medical approvals take 10 years? How many life-saving medications could have been invented if the cost of approval didn’t limit innovation to the biggest companies?
We can't really know whether it was a net good or a net bad because we can't take a look at the reality that didn't happen. What we do know is that there were deadly medications on the market before the FDA. There were medications available over the counter that were outright poisonous. Arsenic and mercury were in common medicines.
It is a balance. You can sacrifice lives through inaction, or sacrifice lives in the way of progress. Lack of regulation is bad, but so is overregulation.
We don’t know! But to ask incredulously about only one side of these questions is disingenuous.
Medical regulations are written in literal blood and dead people. Really good example for Chesterton's fence.
You cannot see the damage done by regulation, but it exists.
Regulation is always a trade-off.
It’s not “us vs them”. It’s us vs us.
Unregulated medical research is bad, like in really, literall Nazi doctor bad. Shocking it still has to pointed out...