It may not work, but we want an agency to protect us.
Lots of people make similar comments regarding the TSA.
On the particulars -- the TSA has never caught an actual terrorist. The FDA has stopped potentially harmful and/or ineffective drugs from coming to market. Anything could be improved and, given drug research costs, there's probably a lot of room for improvement at the FDA. But "let's abolish it because ideology" doesn't fly. In 23andme's particular case, they seem to have an extremely mild and common-sense set of requests that could be fixed at the disclaimer level.
Bingo. Mistakes happen, but different government agencies, different companies, different individuals do have varying degrees of success or failure.
This is an excellent example of the "seen" vs. the "unseen". Sure, the FDA has stopped harmful and/or ineffective drugs from coming to market. But the FDA has also stopped plenty of effective drugs from coming to market, both directly (e.g. no more Vioxx because it might slightly elevate your risk of heart attack) and indirectly (the billions of dollars it costs, directly due to FDA requirements, to bring a drug to market).
Is the assurance that FDA-approved drugs are safe[1] worth the inhibited advancement of medicine? I don’t know, but I doubt it. I think a much wiser approach would be to have potential drugs freely available, and subject to testing by third or quasi-third parties (ala Underwriters Laboratories). Hell, you could even leave the FDA in place if you want to, only limit its ability to restrict drugs to market. For example, you could reverse their decision-making criteria: FDA will only pull drugs from market if it can be shown that the drugs are more harmful than beneficial for their intended use. This would leave the choice to use a certain medication to individuals and their doctors, with guidance from FDA/labs who conduct the same sort of testing the FDA does now.
[1] Note that the FDA’s stamp isn’t really an “assurance” anyway. Vioxx (and loads of other “harmful” drugs) still made it to market.
If you're talking about streamlining the FDA process without significantly increasing the risk of harmful drugs slipping through, I think everybody's in favor of that.
If you're talking about streamlining the process at the cost of higher risk, then that's probably a nonstarter. Why? I (and most people) am not willing to increase my odds of being harmed on behalf of someone else's profit margin. You'd have to be crazy to accept that deal.
Expecting the market to 'just do your research' on drugs is crazy. It takes experts with PhDs a long time to verify a drug as safe, and they still make mistakes sometimes as you indicated... you're expecting me to do it? I haven't taken chemistry since high school.
For me that's not a non-starter. It's the start of a process that involves looking at just how much money gets saved (and by whom), just how much additional risk is borne by those taking the passed medications, and how much faster we're getting new (safe enough and effective enough) drugs on the market.
You're willing to take significantly more risk that a routine drug prescription harms/kills you in order to streamline the process for drug companies? (Note that there already is a process in place for those with advanced diseases that justify a high-risk drug to take experimental drugs with knowledge of the risks).
Any realistic proposal (as in, we have an idea of how much extra risk we're incurring) is going to have a lot of technical details and probably require a huge amount of research to justify it -- it's human lives that we're talking about here. The potential $ savings are big but that doesn't matter if you're dead. Like I said way upthread, there is plenty of room for improvement, but "libertarian pixie dust will make everything better automatically" is the same thought process that led to collective farming and killing 10s of millions in Russia and China.
We need to do what we think is most likely to lead to the best outcome. There's a point beyond which that's no longer "more research", at which point researching more isn't taking it seriously. I have no particularly strong feelings about just where we are in that space - I'm busy saving the world along other lines.
I hate to be that guy, but this is the fallacy of false dilemma, and directly ignores the example I gave above.
>>I (and most people) am not willing to increase my odds of being harmed on behalf of someone else's profit margin. You'd have to be crazy to accept that deal.<<
This isn't the deal. Do you feel that your odds of harm from taking a supplement are significantly too high, since of course supplements are not currently regulated by the FDA or any other government body? Are people who takes supplements crazy?
>>Expecting the market to 'just do your research' on drugs is crazy. It takes experts with PhDs a long time to verify a drug as safe, and they still make mistakes sometimes as you indicated... you're expecting me to do it? I haven't taken chemistry since high school.<<
Why is it crazy to expect the market to do research? This happens with literally every other product available. There are thousands of organizations dedicated to reviewing automobiles, blenders, mattresses, and literally every product you can buy. If people voluntarily want to purchase medicine that has not been evaluated by the FDA or some other testing organization (as is currently the case with thousands of medical supplements that are for sale) why must those people be stopped? Again, the choices aren't FDA approval or no access. There are all sorts of solutions that could be implemented to both increase availability of medicine while still offering consumer protection.
Yes, PhDs make mistakes, but that wasn’t the point of the Vioxx reference. Vioxx was a fantastic pain drug that worked for some people when nothing else would. And that drug was taken away because Vioxx might increase the risk of heart attack. While this may sound fine to you, it was devastating to many people who would have preferred even a large risk of heart attack rather than living with the pain eliminated by Vioxx. (Vioxx was thought to increase the incidence of heart attack a staggering 4 times in one study . . . from .1% to .4%)
Again, nobody is expecting you to do your own research. But that shouldn't limit our options to (1) FDA approval or (2) no drugs for you.
There is also the very solid argument to be made that by choosing to lessen risk, you stifle innovation and produce an overall much worse system in terms of beneficial outcomes.
Lessening risk is far more important than not stifling innovation
I don't think this unqualified statement makes sense. Shouldn't the opportunity cost of the benefits of innovations not produced, weighed against the risks present in allowing a market to produce them, play a factor? And this would no doubt be different for each and every possible innovation.
No. They are robots. Robots that know better. How dare you ask such good questions! You now owe us 40$ for violating my authority citizen!
> Lessening risk is far more important than not stifling innovation
Again, would the OP rather live in a world with 100% risk, 100% innovation, or 0% risk, 0% innovation. I know what I'd choose. There's a pretty common theme in some sci-fis that living without risk isn't even life. Something to think about...
I took it more as being 100% responsible for your actions. But also yielding 100% control of those decisions/creations.
But your point stands. Both options yield death. One instant and real, the other grey and indifferent.
> I don't think this unqualified statement makes sense.
It wasn't unqualified, it had a context that you removed, I'm specifically talking about the medical market, not just any random innovation.
That con men don't disappear with regulations. They simply become regulators and monopolists.
> The mistake in your argument is assuming people are good
So let us give control over some people, to others! That fixes the problem with the human condition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_condition)...
> without oversight innovation isn't the result, scams are, by the truck load.
I'd take thousands of small, grassroot scams, that can be corrected through communal means (boycotting and community awareness) than by one huge one. If the Fed sanctions a pharmaceutical drug that kills thousands, is that worse than a few peddlers selling whatever drugs they want like what currently exists under the nose of the Fed? If you ask me, some illegal drugs are less harmful than legal ones! And that's pure free market with a dash of mafiosa government resistance (guns, extortion, other things to become powerful to fight the powerful).
> For every innovator freed by lack of regulation thousands of con men exist that'll flood the market with crap that hurts people, far more than any possible innovation is likely to save.
And yet, while the FDA didn't exist in the centuries preceding 1906, the formation of the FDA, we see innovations saving lives, and more and more people living meaningful existences. I doubt any community of people would be stupid enough to continue to consume harmful chemicals to degree that harms more than of it harms us now. These organizations exist, yet childhood obesity is the highest it's ever been. Americans consume alcohol, tobacco, fast food, and drugs live they always have. These things haven't be struck a blow one bit by regulation. They've simply become more expensive, and the big man in town takes their cut.
> Lessening risk is far more important than not stifling innovation because the simple indisputable fact is that bad people vastly outnumber innovative people.
Big red flag that we're not arguing with someone logical. "Bad people"... Like who? The Nazis? Or maybe the Jews? You can use this hatred/disgust/mistrust/contempt/negative energy for so much evil/bad/badder/worse!
Why is lessening risk more important that innovation? We've reduced a tremendous amount of risk in the last 100 years. From labour laws to life expectancy to homicide. Can we please stop feeling like we need bureaucrats to run our lives? I'd love to ask gnaritas whether they would prefer a society with no risk and innovation, or a society with massive risk and massive innovation. Arguing even for the status quo puts you in the more favourable side IMO at the get go.
I also love how they class people as either bad, or innovative, as I'm sure they dream of some sort of utopia where you either create something of worth before the age of 12, in which you would become a part of the ruling, innovative class, or not, in which case you are controlled by that class.
But yes gnaritas you're right. Please pass more laws, more regulations, and create more prisons and fines so we can deal with all of these bad people! In fact, I think I just violated regulation g.r.a. 101 - You cannot challenge the authority of someone who knows whats best for you!
I'm not sure that's the best way to get your agument taken seriously. The FDA are conmen now?
I just believe in freedom and liberty: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism.
Not all policemen are corrupt, not all politicians are stooges, not all regulators are conmen. Quite often they are people who know how the system works and feel that they can bring their knowledge to bear to make it work better and ensure that things are done right.
This is why personally I think it would be better if we released medicines and simply had "FDA approved" status post release/post approved by the institution, which would give people the choice to only use FDA approved products, but also give me the choice of utilizing other drugs I can research and make decisions about on my own.
We gave up the monarchy system (to a degree in Western Politics) because a privileged class can never truly choose the correct course of action for subclasses.
We replaced this with a pseudo monarchistic, pseudo technocratic, representative democracy, yet all our problems with War, Poverty, Oppression, and Moral Decay continue unabated.
We're at a pivotal point in our history, where we're coming to the realization that democracy doesn't work, and that we're either going to have to commit to some consistent narrative, or perish while we convulse with confusion over the increasing chaos.
If you ask me I wasn't saying this system was by any means proficient in it's duties to any degree. I was just pointing out that some/many people simply don't care, in other words, they are apathetic. And why not? Individuals can't communicate at the communal level like they used too, and we have no power against bureaucracy.
That said, we only live once. It's no use trying to make the world a better place for the next generation, the one after that, or the one after that. Humans will go extinct in the future. Nothing will remember us on this mortal plane after 1 million years. The things we bicker about are profoundly insignificant to the universe. IMO, we don't merit existence outside of this planet if we can't feed the people we have on this one. Let's not spread suffering amongst the stars with us.
I meant the decay of the family during child rearing. The skyrocketing divorce rates since the 2nd world war. The increasingly consumerist yet more alienated individual. Our society that tells our children that women are sex objects, and that ALL men are perverts or rapists. A society that cares more about celebdom than the starvation and suffering within it's borders. A society that disdains racism/intolerance, yet still disenfranchises millions of Native Americans and black African Americans.
I'm not trying to say you subscribe to those things. Just clarifying my point that our competitive/psychopathic society has consequences. As someone who cares about morals (not an American republican, but rather a Canadian Leftist) I think this will only carry our system forward.
Trust me I don't really care if we're lead as a society by authoritarianism, it's just that I'd rather we utilise that system of government's speciality (efficiency) and attempt to use the current resources we have to develop space technology that can mine efficiently. If not, then let's just live freer happier lives while we can?
I'm not disagreeing with governance, just federalism/nationalism/globalism. Let's just run cities? More of a say, more of an impact, and no one else to blame but your own community. Besides, I know that where I live, towns nearby won't raid us. In fact, we'd probably form some confederacy, and share some- dammit! I created a federal government again...
I don't have the answers. But there's plenty of problems (the first step is admitting it!). If you can't see a bleaker future than our grandparents did, than you're not seeing what I see in the next 40 years.
Most of the rest of your points are subjective and verging on nonsense.
I won't argue that the system sucks a great deal, but the fact is that things are improving and have been for quite a long time.
War, Poverty, Oppression, and Moral Decay are more of a problem than ever. Don't mix up my points with social progress, which is an awesome achievement of our society. My moral decay lies more in trust in general and in the institutions we have to trust to function effectively.
War is continuous, with constant tension to this day. Iran and US peace deal for 6 months? Well, looks like Saudia Arabia and Isreal have teamed up to change that? Eastern European Rocket Grid for Rogue States in the area, justification Iran not needed says "Putin"? Fuck you says US/American Narrative of not liking Russians. Chinese and Japanese conflict over islands? Better not attack Japan China, The US has a defensive treaty with them. That would not be a good thing for anyone.
Poverty is continuous. Personally, I find it despicable that some people can live as billionaires with some thousands of children dying needlessly from diarrhea and malnutrition. Sure donating helps, but surely a system that allows such disparity surely something like this isn't shocking... Not to mention the increasing amount of individuals in the US who rely on food assistance (which may be cut by this improving system)...
Oppression need not even be mentioned. Surveillance, Propaganda, the Prison Industrial Complex... You may have heard about the innocent man being forcefully given cavity searches / colonoscopy surgery / etc without probably cause in the US this past month? If not, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWg_JyJJqaU. System is definitely improving. Who needs the 4th amendment...
And lastly, again, moral decay. I'll modify my point to be less nonsensical for you. The fact that this all happens, and people like you say things are improving, given what we see as innovation everyday? That sounds like a decent amount of cognitive dissonance to me! The first step to a non philosophical based moral ground, that can justify/defend a horrifically immoral system, because fuck everyone else, it's comfortable here where I live. To bring up a popular meme, you should check your privilege.
But you seem to be immune to facts....
But you would think it's more important that we have a lower per 1000 rate would you? Personally, every death to me is a shame, and 40,000,000 in WW2 alone, and us having continual war since 2001 creates an outlook of more war in the future. Don't fool yourself into thinking we couldn't beat that record...