Privatize the FDA

I think new media may be the answer to the FDA. I don't know whether overblown rhetoric will help or hurt but I contend that they kill a lot more people than hurricanes, wildfires and mudslides put together.

Instapundit links to "Fckng Ralph Nader, fckng Public Citizen" on the Making Light Blog. How's this for a Christmas Present from Ralph Nader and the FDA:

Cylert (generic name “pemoline”) has been the most effective treatment for Teresa’s narcolepsy in 24 years since she was first diagnosed. She’s been taking it for most of that time. Now it’s gone.

We discovered this when we tried to refill her standard prescription, just before Christmas, and the pharmacy didn’t have any—and, after some confusion, reported back that the wholesaler didn’t have any either, because (surprise!) it’s no longer being made.

Cylert has been implicated in some people’s liver problems. Teresa is regularly tested and her liver is fine. Evidently Abbott, makers of brand-name Cylert, discontinued it in March—but Sandoz intended to keep making the generic version, until the FDA, pressured by Nader’s group, weighed in to discontinue it entirely—despite a last-minute appeal from the Narcolepsy Network. Thank you, Public Citizen, for completely shafting my wife.

I am stunned to read about people traveling to the Pacific Rim to get procedures not allowed here. Take a minute and read some of the comments (there are a lot!). This seems common on this site and some of the MS blogs I get on.

Abolish the FDA. Privatization is the best option. Hands off our bodies! How's that for a motto?

UPDATE: I should have mentioned that I hijacked the discussion from blaming Mr. Nader to blaming the FDA. The delightfully subtitled "Armed and Dangerous" blog challenges her on this exact point.

Teresa, even as I feel your pain, I’m wondering if you’re going to learn the right lesson. The Cylert ban isn’t an accidental failure of the system, it’s an essential one. It wasn’t perpetrated by villains, but by well-intentioned people working the levers of a system designed to elevate “public safety” above individual choice. That system functioned as designed; it’s the design that’s broken.

Pharmaceuticals Posted by jk at January 4, 2006 11:13 AM