CRAIGforCONGRESS
Missouri's 7th District, U.S. House of Representatives

 

 

 

Congressional Issues 2010
DOMESTIC ISSUES
The Food and Drug Administration
The 112th Congress should
  • modify the Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act of 1938 to allow pharmaceutical companies to opt out of Food and Drug Administration testing requirements and to use alternative organizations to certify product safety and efficacy and
  • allow individuals the freedom to use any non-FDA-approved product.
  • eventually abolish the FDA.
Compassionate Conservatism?

Sharon Harris, Advocates for Self-Government

A while back, I saw a TV news show about a new drug the FDA was considering for approval. There were people, some of them in wheelchairs, begging — literally begging — for the drug, which had helped many of them and which for some was their last chance. Tears were streaming down their faces. The pious committee of doctors sat around a table and voted not to give the drug to these people because the government had not yet proven its effectiveness. "It's for your own good," one of them said to the sick people. Later, one member of the committee explained to the reporter that they didn't want to "give false hope to these people."
      These medical bureaucrats know so well what's best for you that they will kill you before they'll let you make a decision for yourself. Isabel Patterson, in her book God of the Machine, called people like this "humanitarians with a guillotine."
      The FDA is a silent killer. The number of deaths that could have been prevented with life-saving drugs this agency withheld from the marketplace is in the hundreds of thousands. FDA delays continue to kill many thousands of people every year.
      Many patients suffering from terrible pain are denied adequate pain relief — even though such relief may be legal, cheap, and readily available. Many doctors and hospitals fear that if they write too many prescriptions, federal and state regulators will harass them or even halt their practices. Their fear is grounded in reality.
      Dr. Richard Blonsky, president of the American Academy of Pain Medicine, said, "For a person experiencing pain, narcotics are the best pain killers we know. A lot of doctors fear that if they write too many prescriptions, Big Brother will get them." Studies indicate that up to 70% of terminal cancer patients — patients who are dying and thus no longer in danger of long-term addiction to narcotics — do not get sufficient pain medication.
      This suffering is the product of the visible fist of government.

The Invisible Hand Is a Gentle Hand

FDAReview.orgNew Website: FDAReview.org

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