The FDA Does More Harm Than Good

I will respond to each of the Con's points then present arguments about the full function of the FDA 1) The problem with banning cigarettes and alcohol is that both have had deep routes in American history (Tobacco was America's first cash crop that helped the nation grow, Beer was at one point the 5th largest industry in America) and that attempts to abolish them have had mixed results. When Alcohol was outlawed prior to the Great Depression it did not stop people from brewing their own and selling it, prohibition also spawned a great number of corrupt politicians, rum-runners, and organized crime itself originated from the prohibition of alcohol. The FDA doesnt ban these because past experiences of banning such wildly consumed goods led to disastrous effects. For the record, although Cigarettes are not banned, the FDA has been involved in a campaign to limit their advertising rights, limit right to advertise to children, and post severe taxes on the industry while also labeling each Cigarette pack to warn consumers of its danger. 2) Example 1: The FDA didnt inherit such powers to approve drugs until well after their creation. If the FDA feels that something should be taken off the market, inspected, and then re-approved to be out on the market to protect consumers than there is nothing wrong with that. The site you have shown is also clearly biased against the FDA and the government, here is a sight showing how the FDA operates in this matter in a more truthful view. http://www.fda.gov... Example 2: Dietary supplements can have a very profound impact on the human body http://www.washingtonpost.com... http://www.cancer.org... http://www.consumerreports.org... Seeing as how these are potentially dangerous substances the FDA has the right to regulate them in the name of consumer safety. Example 3: A drug is literally defined as a substance that is intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease in individuals, in this case cheerios were being used specifically to mitigate cholesterol which technically classifies it as a drug... Example 4: What that other biased site (yes its biased it says in its title "The FDA Kills" is that the FDA never intentionally releases knowingly hazardous drugs.... 3) The problem with drugs is that they are tested via trial and error on people who volunteer to take the drug and then are examined for any bad side effects. Many times though once released to the general public a specific group of people may start showing a particular symptom that was not picked up in the original study of the drug, so it is taken off the market. If the FDA approves a drug they had good reason to believe wasnt hazardous its not a crime, and then if they remove a product from the shelves if it turns out to be hazardous fixes the mistake too. 4) The reason why it takes so much longer and costs so much more money is because over time the amount of knowledge in the medical field obtained about how the human body works and reacts to pills and chemicals has increased almost exponentially. As more and more is known about how a single drug could affect your entire body, companies must go through far more vigorous experimentation to ensure that whatever drug they are manufacturing is up to date with safety codes, because if it isnt a couple thousand dollars saved on a drug could end up as a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the company. =========================================================================== The FDA is designed to try to protect consumers from dangerous, hazardous, sometimes fatal drugs meant to fix or cure a far more minor problem. The FDA does this by either limiting which drugs go out onto the market in the first place by allowing positive drugs that passed inspections while blocking other drugs proved to be hazardous beforehand, and by quickly removing drugs off the market that are found to be harmful to people. Without the FDA there would be no regulation of why corporation try to put on shelves and market as medicine and no one could control how products proven to be dangerous could be taken off the shelves. The FDA also ensures the quality of other goods consumers use such as drugs, food, actual medical equipment, distributing vaccines to clinics and schools, monitoring the safe storage of donated blood, tissue samples, and organs, various medical equipment for pets and animals, locating and seizing products that give off radiation, and the close monitoring of Tobacco products. The FDA keeps people safe, and once in a while when they mess up they quickly fix the problem so that no one else gets hurt. Without the FDA all of the things in the list mentioned above would not go through any kind of inspection or testing and corporations would begin to market just about anything to make a quick buck while consimers pay the price for it, many of them with their lives...