In my personal opinion, medicines in the US are far too regulated. I agree with what you're saying about efficacy versus safety, but I'd even go further in my stance that safety is really overstated. There's a huge difference between something like the safety profile of elixir sulfanilamide and most of the drugs on the market today. Many of them could be distributed without a prescription over the counter, or distributed behind counter under the regulation of pharmacists, or distributed with a prescription by a wider range of providers. It's absurd to me that something like alcohol is something you can buy in the grocery, but something like acyclovir requires a prescription.
I know my personal opinions about this are unusual, statistically speaking, but I think the pendulum has swung far too far in the other direction since the 1930s. It's frustrating to me that debates in the US are often framed in terms of two extremes, one resembling what we have, which is broken, and another where there's no safety oversight at all, as if those are the only options.
I personally feel like the FDA should concern itself with regulating the characterization of basic safety profiles of substances, and with product purity and truth in labeling. Outside of that, it seems like you start getting into rent-seeking.
I know my personal opinions about this are unusual, statistically speaking, but I think the pendulum has swung far too far in the other direction since the 1930s. It's frustrating to me that debates in the US are often framed in terms of two extremes, one resembling what we have, which is broken, and another where there's no safety oversight at all, as if those are the only options.
I personally feel like the FDA should concern itself with regulating the characterization of basic safety profiles of substances, and with product purity and truth in labeling. Outside of that, it seems like you start getting into rent-seeking.
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