The art of writing warning labels requires a wealth of market and litigation experience. The warning rules greatly favor old products over new ones. Innovation germinates in small institutions. But success in the regulatory system requires a large stable of lobbyists and liability lawyers. So technology tends to proceed in small steps from established firms more than huge leaps from innovators.
Insurance aggravates the bias against innovators.
U.S. utilities now go abroad to buy back improvements on the technology U.S. firms once sold. Last year the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia arranged research in Argentina to test a bovine rabies vaccine, and Oregon State University researchers chose New Zealand to test another bioengineered vaccine. Play it safe. In this sense, our enemy is within, not without. We are stifled by our own dogooders, our law courts, our bureaucrats.