Yeah, you’re right, Dr. C., trust the regulators. They are omniscient.

No, they suck too, so people need to check up on them as well to ensure that they’re honest and the policy is generating the proper effect.

Just ask the diabetics who’ve been taking FDA-approved Avandia, who have a 64% increased risk of heart-related death and a 43% increased risk of having a heart attack.

You can trust regulators. I don’t.

Ah, so an alternative free market solution is to abolish the FDA and let all commercial players compete with “advertorials” telling us, honestly, for real, that their competitors drugs will murder you but ours are safe for puppies and grandmas—and you’ll get a free iPod for every 1000 Lipitors.

And yes, you as a consumer, could indeed theoretically decide to get a PhD in endrocrinology and raise $50 million dollars for trials to see if they’re telling the truth or not.

Coming back to reality—the only reason we have those data avilable about Avandia is surely because of a non-commercial regulatory system which requires collecting it and paying for somebody to analyze it regardless of the commercial consequences.

Regulatory failure doesn’t necessarily imply the alternative abandonment, any more than occasional bad parenting demands orphanges for all.

Look, in the end it’s all people; not a subhuman caste of “regulators” next to the glorious ubermenschen of business .