Congressional Republicans were all aflutter because Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was a 2000+ page bill, and it regulates, albeit rather weakly as it turned out, 16% of the economy.
Card-carrying congressional loons such as Michele Bachmann have called it slavery.
Rush Limbaugh said he would move to Costa Rica if it passed. He is still here so one suspects Costa Rica would not have him.
If these freedom-loving 'patriots' do not like healthcare reform because it is an imposition on liberty and the free market, and it regulates 16% of the economy, what could they possibly think about the powers of the Food and Drug Administration?
- It strictly regulates the manufacture and sale of food, drugs and cosmetics.
- It determines what a manufacturer must prove, and with what evidence, before a product can be marketed. If it does not like the study the manufacturer has performed, it can require it to be changed and re-done, prior to allowing the product to be marketed.
- It sets strict safety standards, inspects private (yikes!) industry manufacturing plants, imposes fines (e.g., Genzyme just paid $175M) for unsafe practices, and can ask prosecutors to indict violators who, upon conviction, could go to jail.
- With the stroke of a pen, it can force a company to remove its product from the market.
- It can force a company to take remedial actions that will cost the company money and time (and do not need to apologize to the company for doing it!).
- It pre-approves what assertions a manufacturer may make about its product.
- It can force companies to put labels on their products.
- The economic activity it strictly regulates constitutes ~30% of our economy.
This is 'nanny-state' writ large. How can a conservative live, how can she breathe, how can he feel free, with such a burdensome federal agency?
So, Republicans/Tea Partiers--should we eliminate or severely weaken the FDA's regulatory authority?
Imagine if such regulation had not been previously established, and major outbreaks of contaminated food, contaminated drugs, ineffective drugs, failed implanted devices and scarring cosmetics had accumulated over 50 years, and one party--the Democrats--had decided enough was enough in 2009, and introduced the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.
The above would have been just the beginning of the Republicans'/Tea Partiers' list of horribles. Because that list accurately describes what is in the act, it would only have been their starting point. I am not sure what lies they would have concocted to embellish it, but I am certain they would. After all, Betsy McCaughey needs something to lie about.
So Republicans/Tea Partiers: do you trust the safety of the food you eat to "voluntary industry regulation"? What about drugs and medical devices--should private industry be allowed to make any claims they wish about the safety and effectiveness of the sleeping medication you take at night, or the asthma medication your kids use while at school? Or, for that matter, the anti-nausea medications you take when you are pregnant? Should drug companies be allowed to put 10 milligrams in a pill, when it is only effective if a patient takes 50 milligrams, saving itself 80% of the raw materials' cost? Should the defibrillator in Dick Cheney's heart have been subject to government-mandated safety or performance standards prior to its insertion?
Yes or No?
Can you live with the federal government regulating, strictly regulating, and probably with more than 2000 pages of regulation, 30% of the private economy? Wouldn't the drug and device companies' profits disappear overnight, and jobs be decimated?
For that matter, how can it be that the drug industry is so heavily regulated and yet, and yet... is among the more profitable sectors of the economy? How is that even possible in your world view?
C'mon, Newtie. You have an appointment scheduled with god in February to find out if he tells you to run for President. Shouldn't we, shouldn't HE, know in advance if you would nuke the FDA? What about carpet-bombing it with your conventional language of destruction, aka lying? I know you dodged the draft (bum knee, right?, I think it was Rush who had the pilonidal cyst, or do I have this ass-backwards?), but you sure know how to use tough-guy rhetoric.
Tell us. How can any conservative Republican or Tea Partier feel free with 30% of the US economy being so strictly regulated? How?
C'mon Michele, Rand, Sharon, Nikki, Carly...
Instead of attacking healthcare reform--a weak regulatory law for only 16% of the economy (swatting at 'gnats' as Condi Rice put it as she defended ignoring al-Qaeda for the USS Cole bombing pre-9/11; or an "ant" as John Boehner calls the financial meltdown)--why not take down the FDA and go for the big enchilada? Now, that would be "a big f*kg deal".
And, if perchance, Republicans/Tea Partiers conjure a rationale for the FDA's powers from the vapors of health, safety, confidence, then why should we leave our financial health (in many cases a person's entire life's work) to the whims of large banks, or our planet's health to the machinations of big energy companies?
That is, should not the general public, exercising collective power through government (and, that is all government is in a democracy), serve as a balance, a "counterveiling power" as Galbraith called it, to big business?
Or, do you trust your lives, your health, your sacred fortunes, the planet your children will inherit, purely to the self-interest of corporations?
Perhaps all you need do is cut their taxes, and all will be well...
Next up, the Interstate Commerce Commission. Let the railroads and trucking industry police themselves. Lets make the simple act of crossing the street a true adventure.
Before Reagan and Gingrich, you know what made America Morally Great ? The Fact that, we had taxes, that paid for so many public services that everyone, (like a Christian nation) was being taken care of in Food, Shelter, Health, & Education Oppurtunities.
Yeah, just keep cutting those taxes till we're all on dirt roads again, with no police, no health care, no Regulated Fair Business Practices so Republicans Can Sell Us Poison in Medicine Bottles, etc and kiss low crime goodbye. That'll be your results.
It's a real paradox Republicans -(being Liars and Deniers) that with all their Self-Professed Economic Expertise -it's their False Economic Theories that always plunge us into Recessions, Depressions, The Creation of More Poverty than before, and National Deficits that are outrageous, then blaming Democrats who come in 2 or 3 years after their Recession was already well-started -and blame the Democrats for...... nothing. Greed is The Root of All Evil. You want to create an economic mess for your own citizens -turn the economy over to Greedy Republicans. You want to create 10 times more crime -just keep Republicans in office Sending all the Money up to the Multi-Milllionaires saying "we're on God's side" with one hand while ROBBING THE PUBLIC OF ALL PUBLIC SERVICES AND JOB OPPURTUNITIES AT DECENT WAGES WHILE MULTIPLYING THE POVERTY NUMBERS" Benefitting Only the Rich
Here's the Irony. Re-check the Basics of Christianity as in Jesus' Sermon On The Mount and the fact that GREED IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL. While these Neo -CON Republicans are Conning us 99 % non-Billionaires out of every dollar we have, you've got them Preaching Self-Righteous Bull and Agressively Using Christianity as a Self-Righteous Club -while ripping off every person they can who is Not a Millionaire and getting their pictures taken going to Church -while ALL THOSE "BAD LIBERALS" ARE THE ONES ACTUALLY FIGHTING FOR THE MIDDLE AND LOWER CLASSES AGAINST HYPORCRITS & PHARISEES
What De-Regulation Really means is -No Accountability for Reckless, Greedy Actions & Products. The last Good Republican President and Good Person we had was Eisenhower who was regardless of party, out to gain the Most Good For The Most Number of Americans -with personal Greed for Power & Money & Ego Inflation -being No part of his decisions.
Like RUSH LIMBAUGH'S..."NOW THIS IS JUST FOR ENTERTAINMENT'S SAKE " but, ... I would equate the Current Republican Party -these last 30 years as Ted Bundy in a movie I saw about 6 months ago wherein, he was raping some innocent woman he'd just clubbed in the head yelling "F you" and frothing at the mouth as he was raping her" -This is The Republican Party that is saying it right in your face -going as far as American Citizens will allow them -to steal every dollar and foreign nation they can get away with and giving all the money up to the 5 or 10 wealthiest people like Rupert Murdoch (created Fox News) and all his Underlings who may only have what? -30 million in the banks ? In truth, like Louis -the Sun King? and Czar Nicholas who both had just about every dollar in their bank acounts, what is one to do? Robin Hood?
Better no regulator than a corrupt one. Then people could realize that making their own decisions means making their own decisions, and there would be a lot less temptation for corruption in the production of safety and effectiveness studies.
Because if he was he'd realize that without consumer protections there is no way I'd ever do business with someone new ever again. meaning no matter how awesome he made his product I'd never be his customer.
It simply wouldn't be worth the risk.
You, rather, must know nothing about business. Business is built on trust, nothing more. Trust is the essential component. That trust must be built on a foundation of competence, fairness, and mutual respect.
Government uses guns to enforce its will. This is not the basis for trust, cannot be the basis for business or business decisions, and never will be.
You are free to take what you get and like it, but you are not free to use my money to subsidize your poor choice.
You are correct; the agency should be abolished. The author imagines that, absent massive government intervention, no one would be safe and nothing would work. That is an obvious falsehood. The only thing that federal regulatory agencies provide is a legal framework within which big corporations can operate while saying they are compliant and therefore safe.
Pass the Thalidomide.
"So, Republicans/Tea Partiers--should we eliminate or severely weaken the FDA's regulatory authority?"
Eliminate it, by phasing it out. You imagine that I could not join a private cooperative, in the absence of federal intervention, that would provide food and drug testing? You imagine that the federal government is actually better at doing anything? The government specializes in one thing: killing people.
And if that isn't enough, I give you the "Federal" Reserve, which actually creates then explodes financial bubbles, ruining countless lives and fortunes, while providing legal cover for favored banks, lending them money at near-zero interest rates, while the SEC and CFTC sleep and the FBI financial crime unit is on vacation.
I frankly find it shocking that anyone would have the gall to argue for the viability and value of the federal government's ability to regulate anything. The author is a fool.
NEVER put profits before quality, would they? I'm sure that if, for instance, a pharmaceutical company
here chose to manufacture products in China, without any government oversight, everything would be
just fine! I just have a word....it won't quite come to the forefront of my consciousness....I think it
starts with an "M". What is it? Masochistic? No. Myopic? Nah. Oh wait...I've got it now....
MELAMINE!
(The Chinese really love it...they have put it in some products for our benefit...without even
being asked!)
Milton Friedman gave conservatives the rationale to do what they wanted to do anyhow, i.e., focus on the elite, and the rest of you be damned.
I (think I) understand the Tea Partiers' frustrations. Lashing out at "government" (which, in the end, is only themselves) is a convenient whipping boy. But, they are also quite delusional--they do not know how bad their lives would be, and, frankly, how bad the economy would be because of "no confidence" in any product. And, their grand delusion is that, if govt disappeared, they would be free--they wouldn't, they would just be controlled by major corporations even more than they are today. At least, with govt, there is some recourse--aka, elections, the judicial system, etc. What recourse is there with a corporation that says take lower wages or we move to Mexico?
The reason that it is not perfect is that people are not perfect. Even with a file of 1000 patients who took the drug, vs. 1000 that did not, our imperfection means that we cannot spot all the problems, drug companies still (stupidly) hide problems they should surface, and sometimes 1000 isn't enough to determine the side effects.
But, you really want to go back to the days of Upton Sinclair, with contaminated meat-packing plants all over? With no controls over bacterial contamination, no records so they cannot trace the causes,,,the reason I wrote about this using these examples is that I have developed drugs, and I myself have been frustrated by the rules, but I would never suggest eliminating them. You would have clinics like they now have in Panama claiming miracle "stem cell cures", charging $30K a pop, and doing nothing for the patient except a few days in the sun.