More Thoughts on the FDA

After some additional reflection about my posts regarding the FDA, which can be found here and here, I think I have a good suggestion for improvement regarding the nature of the FDA’s operations. I think the FDA should continue to operate as it does, approving drugs and perhaps even serving as a vehicle for centralizing complaints about drugs, but with one major change to their rules of operation: the FDA should not be able to require it approval of a drug before that drug comes to market. In fact, FDA approval should be strictly voluntary. The FDA would still be able to give their stamp of approval on new drugs whose manufacturers submit to the approval process. In fact, many manufacturers would do this simply because demand for their product would increase after FDA approval. Those patients who choose to only use drugs approved by the FDA would still be able to do so. In fact, those patients would be completely indifferent to the current process and the “voluntary approval” process. For everyone else, the voluntary system would be preferred because drugs would come to market faster and more often because of fewer mandatory regulations.

Of course, there are some to would object to this because they believe that drug manufacturers are evil and would produce snake oil to make a quick buck. This problem could be controlled through rigorous legal accountability and market pressures. Others may object because they think that patients and their doctors would be unable to determine which drugs are safe. These people can worry about their own lives and worry less about regulating the free choice of others.