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Originally Posted by Elephant Walk
You just contradicted yourself.
Why the hell would they put out bad products especially in this climate of advance litigiousness? They would test it till it was necessary, so their reputations would not be further dragged through the mud. The FDA is unnecessary, it only impedes life-saving products. Furthermore, it prohibits things that are not necessarily needed to be prohibited.
Wait, so is the FDA necessary or unnecessary? Do you think there would be more without it?
We also have a drug market which impedes life-saving medication from saving lifes now. If you didn't know a drug's side effects, but it could possibly save your life...would you take it? I probably would, as long as I was assured one of the side effects wasn't death. (and, through the companies advanced testing to ensure less losses, that would probably not be one of the side effects. Another thing to consider is that these drug companies would no longer have the FDA to be like "look, they tested it so it's not so much our fault", so I would imagine a judge would be willing to take even more from the drug company thus making the possibility of risk larger, thus making it necessary for greater testing. (but that's just a side effect, it kind of just came to me)
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This displays your complete ignorance of what the FDA actually does. Since I actually know people who have worked for the FDA, know what the agenda of the FDA is, know what medications are actually coming out, what medications have been withdrawn from the market and why, which medications have not been approved here that are approved in other countries and why, I might have a little better understanding of the intricacies of this issue. The FDA has a very important role in our country that a "free market" would NOT replace. You ask, "Why the hell would they put out bad products especially in this climate of advance litigiousness?" They do it because in a lot of cases it is very hard to PROVE that their drug caused a problem when a lot of illness are multi-factorial. They also are willing to accept a certain amount of liability to profit ratio, ie. the Vioxx fiasco (the company had the information that the drug increased the risk of heart attacks and stroke but hid the data!)Safety in medications, effectiveness and benefits are important, and especially important if you are asking an insurance company to pay for a medication or advise a physician that a medication is indicated in a specific medical condition or more importantly, ask a patient to trust that a pill will help them more than it will hurt them! There are so many supplements on the market that claim to treat certain illnesses that don't have to prove it. Patients take these and never get any better. They have no recourse. At least with the FDA approved medications, there is science to back them up, and the FDA has made sure that the insurance company has lined all their ducks in a row to make sure that the drugs are as safe as possible without obstructing the flow of new medications. If you poll physicians, I think you'll find an overwhelming majority who support the FDA and its work.