Perhaps I should have suggested Thomas Laughren instead…

Its not in my nature to read between the lines. Peter Pitts was among those Industry Apologists at FDA who chose to stay silent while tens of thousands of children were being maimed and killed due to the side effects of antidepressants.

Peter Pitts isnt “Gullible”. He just knows what side his bread is buttered on…

It wouldn’t be run by Peter Pitts - drugwonks.com - a real person, former FDA man and possibly the last utterly gullible human being on earth who remains convinced that Big Pharma are honest (or more realistically someone who benefits from purporting that ‘belief’) …

would it?

James, if you’re out there - I agree that Conglomerate (let’s call them that, rather than “Big”) Pharma likes regulation when they can control it. That is the situation today, as it has been at least since Kessler, and really before that. Again, I refer you to the Goddard era to suggest a different version of the relationship between FDA and pharma (small and large). In those days, you could see a much clearer differntiation between those companies that were _both_ highly competitive and also highly committed to rational safety standards (reinforced by FDA), and those who were not.

They believed, as you suggest, that the the good guys would also do better in the market, and they didn’t mind the FDA policing the others - for ethical as well as financial interests.

In more recent years, what’s been interesting is to see former radical deregulators become “agency rules” (preemptors) once they can control the agency. I hope their godfather Milton Friedman, if not Ayn Rand, would turn in his grave. But I’m not sure he/they would.

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“…Which goes back to my original thesis–Big Pharma would not want Objectivists making the rules.”

What the Worshipful Company (my nickname for the pharmaceutical industry) doesn’t want is anybody, irrespective of who or what they are, enforcing the rules that are already there. The stuff that goes down goes down because there is a culture of blind eye in operation at pretty much every level, as far as I can see, but certainly when it comes to regulation.

There is sufficient legislation to undermine the quackery that passes as science, but nobody appears to be interested in enforcing it.

Matt

In the event you haven’t read Atlas Shrugged, Hank, I recommend doing so. In the book, some businesspeople supported being regulated because it meant they did not have to compete in the marketplace–it kept the rich and powerful rich and powerful. Less regulation often = greater competition.

Which goes back to my original thesis–Big Pharma would not want Objectivists making the rules.