That's funny coming from someone who thinks that the government is going to "gut the nutritional supplements business and big pharma will rejoice: more sick people to treat with no alternatives."
It takes special tin foil to believe nonsense like that. For someone with your background to actually believe this sort of thing is disappointing and surprising. You sound like someone whose been bitten. What's the real reason you're against the FDA and industry? Malcontents usually have an agenda. What's yours? Maybe things are different in the medical device business however, I've also spent a great deal of time in R&D and am actively involved with the food and pharmaceutical industries. I've fought many battles with the FDA, USDA and various organizations committed to telling consumers what they can and cannot consume based on junk science.
I have no interest in the medical device industry or the electrical power generating business. I only know my industry and can speak confidently and credibly to the relationship between it and the FDA. The FDA gains nothing from serving industry. The FDA is all about covering their ass and making no mistakes. Public opinion and politics retain all the control over the FDA, not industry. There is no graft or bribing going on because there is no upside for either party. Industry would be stupid to even attempt to do so. If they were caught it would ruin the company. Recently, the FDA came under heavy criticism for playing it too safe. Patents would run out before approvals were given. Finally, the media decided to blame the FDA for people dying while promising drugs languished in an onerous approval process because of their adherence to absolute safety. There is no absolute safety. The FDA, being sensitive to public opinion, began fast tracking. The result: many people died allegedly because of Vioxx. Now unfortunately, the pendulum will swing the other way. People want life saving drugs but not the inherent risks. It's a no-win for the pharmaceuticals. The FDA treats industry as bad as everyone else. I do not know one regulatory, R&D or management executive in the pharma or food business who looks at their relationship with the FDA as anything other than adversarial.
You seem to think that the FDA exists to protect the big pharmaceuticals from competition and other threats to their business. Yet pharma profit margins are under performing and their earnings multiples are a reflection of that disappointment. If what you claim is true you'd expect these companies to be better performers and you'd think that they would have done a better job at keeping the vaccine makers healthier instead of running them out of the country and out of business.
You are unqualified to be commenting outside the medical device industry.
Just because you don't know anything about it? Allow me to cure you. If you Google "nutritional supplements" and Codex, you'll come up with over 24,000 hits. Must be something going on you don't know about, eh? Here are the first three:
CODEX ALIMENTARIS ENDS U.S. SUPPLEMENTS IN JUNE 2005
Working stealthily BIG PHARMA has rapidly pushed their legislative program (Codex Alimentaris) in Europe that will eliminate the free choice Americans now have to purchase vitamins, herbs, minerals, homeopathic remedies, aminoacids and nutritional supplements. This elimination of all competition for the pharmaceutical industry will produce an enormous increase in the already exorbitant profits earned by the pharmaceutical firms. Of even greater significance the lack of free choice to stay well by taking effective nutritional substances will promptly be followed by a sharp increase in illnesses that will only be treated in the future with pharmaceutical drugs. (italics in the original)
Action Alert: WTO Codex Regulations Will Restrict Consumer Access to Nutritional Supplements
You've taken supplements for years. You're out of vitamins C and E. You go to your natural food store, but you can't find the kind you want on the shelf. You ask a clerk to find them for you. She says you can't get your vitamin E as mixed tocopherols (the best natural form) anymore, and asks if you like your vitamin C in the 100 or 200 milligram size. The 1,000 milligram size, you say.
"Where have you been?" she asks. "Asleep since 2004? It's 2007 now! The types and sizes of vitamins you just asked for have been declared illegal by the Dispute Settlement Body of the World Trade Organization!"
In its assault on the dietary supplement industry, [these special interest groups have] generated a plethora of biased, inaccurate and purposefully deceptive information.
Snip
Codex and the European Directive are upcoming regulations that will affect the nutrition supplment industry in Europe. What is much more important for Americans are two bills in Congress that could severely affect access to nutritional supplements and lead to dramatic increases in the cost of supplements and healthcare.
Those were the first thee pages taken in order. Gosh, I guess the industry is mighty upset about something. One notes that even though the supplements business is big, there are a huge number of small firms therein ripe for the picking. Soon, their life or death will be in the hands of a European bureaucrat. AstraZeneca, Novartis, or Bayer surely won't care. Just because you are clueless doesn't mean that it isn't happening.
What's the real reason you're against the FDA and industry? Malcontents usually have an agenda. What's yours?
I've made that perfectly clear. I want to return risk management back to the free market (which is what regulation is supposedly for). That will take tort reform and insurance deregulation. The FDA accomplishes virtually nothing to protect the consumer. It protects big business by means about which you are clearly misinformed.
I have no interest in the medical device industry or the electrical power generating business.
Obviously not. Still, you could have learned how regulation controls access to markets and resources.
The FDA gains nothing from serving industry.
Its employees would beg to differ with you.
The FDA is all about covering their ass and making no mistakes. Public opinion and politics retain all the control over the FDA, not industry. There is no graft or bribing going on because there is no upside for either party.
None that you can see. The big graft happens in Congress.
You seem to think that the FDA exists to protect the big pharmaceuticals from competition and other threats to their business.
No, I SAID they exist to protect their investors.
Yet pharma profit margins are under performing and their earnings multiples are a reflection of that disappointment.
They build it up, reap the cash, talk it up so that the bag-holders buy, drive it down and consolidate. Then they pump it up again. Etc. Investors.
You sound just like an oil company executive with no clue how the energy business is manipulated. I thought you might learn something from that post, but you're clearly so deeply entrenched in your battles that you can't see the big picture.