Christina’s Common Sense

What would we ever do without the FDA?

If you’re a typical American, you probably think we’d all die. We need the FDA to approve drugs so they don’t kill us, right? If it was left to the drug companies they’d never test anything and we wouldn’t know if that bizarre vitamin concoction we just bought at Walgreen’s is safe or not.

To quote Capt. Teneal of MXC, “Well, you’re wrong.” The FDA is not keeping us safer. In fact it misses many side effects, some of them very dangerous, when approving drugs. In addition, the near decade it takes to put a drug through the federal bureaucracy leaves critically ill patients with fewer options. A drug that could save a cancer patient’s life is denied him because it’s only 6 years into the approval process. Honestly, if you were dying of cancer would you not take a drug that might kill you and instead live with cancer that will kill you? According to Mom and Dad Government, it’s better for you to die than take a chance on an unapproved drug.

The FDA is failing us. It’s that simple. We don’t need to reform it. We don’t need to fix it. We need to get rid of it. Doctors who make drugs aren’t going to stay in business very long if they make drugs that kill their customers. That’s bad business. Drugs that don’t work won’t stay on the market very long, just like cars and air conditioners and computers that don’t work. People stop buying them.

I admit some part of me’s a little nervous about leaving substances I put into my body to the market. But the government sure isn’t working. When something’s not working, you don’t keep doing it. You abandon it and try something else. The FDA’s not working. Let’s hang an “Out of business” sign on its door and try something else.