No, there are people here who think that the FDA will move to have vitamins turned into controlled substances dispensed only by prescription. The black market and the raids come after that.
I guess no one stops to think that just because some NGO wants us to do something doesn't mean we have to.
The WTO is a lot more than an NGO.
BTW, your link says vitamins will be banned by June 2005.
My link? That was Google's link. I just took the first five to show you that there is a concern that YOU SAID DIDN'T EXIST. It was, in that respect, an unbiased sample, something of which you appear incapable of recognizing.
That's just more nonsense from someone who has a very limited understanding of the FDA.
There is nothing the FDA does that the market couldn't do, other than provide cover for the producers. In that respect, it accomplishes nothing.
The FDA has nothing to gain from supporting business.
Oh really? Without them they don't have jobs. Find me a bureaucrat who doesn't care about job security.
This is nothing more than anti-pharmeceutical conspiratorial nonsense.
Yours is nothing more than handwaving.
Is FDA protection also why our vaccine industry went south?
No, price regulation is the principle culprit. It consoldiated the market very nicley.
Is FDA protection why the banning of saccharine, based on junk science, ruined an entire industry?
Are you asserting that other artificial sweeteners don't exist?
I don't remember anything recent and I doubt if it happens much at all. If there was no competition or if there were no entrepreneurs bringing new products to market you might have a case. Unfortunately for you, there are many promising technologies coming from start ups and the pharma and food industries are falling over each other to buy them. I see the acquisitions all the time.
Yours is a contradictory argument. I said there were barriers to entry that favor big pharma. Small companies cannot afford to enter the market alone SO THEY MUST SELL OUT to big companies who can afford market entry. Yup, that's how it works to consolidate OWNERSHIP. OTOH, if regulations were local a local supplier could try something and if it worked get bigger. Such a system could actually provide better statistical information and limit total liability compared to a nationwide introduction. For a State willing to offer liability laws that were less draconian, there would be more pharmaceutical entrepreneurship. QED.
When was the last time anyone at the FDA was convicted of selling their influence to big business?
I never said it worked that way.
And this is coordinated by all the people who are invested in these stocks? It has nothing to do with current earnings, future earnings or what promising drugs they have in the pipeline?
Symptoms are not the disease.
The FDA exists to protect the millions of people who own stock in pharmaceutical companies?
"Millions of people" don't control large blocks of voting stock. To suggest otherwise is pure smoke.
I'm just a guy in the food industry who happens to know what the hell he's talking about.
I've qualified product for the USDA as well. No you don't.
Unfortunately, I find that you are uniquely unqualified to be offering anyone a lesson on the FDA and their relationship with the food or pharmaceutical industries.
Just keep narrowing those categories and you might actually have a claim.
Yeah sure. They won't establish cigarettes as controlled substances but will go after vitamins. I guess the probability of all this happening depends on what universe you live in.
The WTO is a lot more than an NGO.
Whatever. They still can't tell us what to do. Witness the Canadian softwood debate.
It was, in that respect, an unbiased sample, something of which you appear incapable of recognizing.
Oh, c'mon. I showed you 4 million hits that Karl Rove is gay. Do you believe it now? If June of last year was wrong, when will they come for our vitamins?
There is nothing the FDA does that the market couldn't do, other than provide cover for the producers..
You continue to show us how little you understand about the FDA and its relationship with industry.
Without them they don't have jobs.
So if the FDA doesn't do the bidding of industry, industry is going to go away and then the bureaucrats won't have jobs? I'm left speechless by your logic....
No, price regulation is the principle culprit.
The FDA did nothing to help these producers to maintain their margins? I thought that was their job.
It consolidated the market very nicely.
Unbelieveable. You couldn't possibly be more misinformed.
Are you asserting that other artificial sweeteners don't exist?
Now you're taking on an issue that you are truly unprepared to debate. The FDA banned saccharine despite the pleas of industry and consumers because of faulty studies conducted by the toxic terrorists. This case is where that term came from and is why watchdog groups like Citizens for the integrity in science got started. If the FDA were really about protecting industry this would not have happened. And please don't try and sell that crap about other artificial sweeteners colluding with the FDA to make it happen. I know far too many people intimately involved in that issue and recognize what kind of paranoia it takes to believe that nonsense.
The FDA still sits on drugs while their patents run out killing the entire R&D investment the company has made. If you're crazy theories were true, this would not be happening.
Small companies cannot afford to enter the market alone SO THEY MUST SELL OUT to big companies who can afford market entry.
Please stop trying to BS me. Most pharma companies will not buy a start-up until they pass FDA. In some cases they form partnerships along the way to help spread the risk. Yet, there are many, many companies that do it on their own and have the technology and people to attract private funding. They don't always sell out and can sign distribution agreements with the big pharmaceuticals if necessary. Your original assertion was that the FDA serves to limit competition. I say that the number of start ups attracting vast amounts of capital from private sources proves you are wrong..again.
Such a system could actually provide better statistical information and limit total liability compared to a nationwide introduction.
Liability is just one of many issues being faced. I doubt you would simplify things by localizing regulations. To me, this sounds like nothing more than an opportunity to create more regulations, not less, by allowing even more politicians and special interests into the fray. The end result will be less capital for the companies who need it to expand. Liability reform needs to come at the federal level.
Symptoms are not the disease.
What are you saying here? Are you claiming that companies are not valued based on current and future earnings, products in the pipeline and competent management?
"Millions of people" don't control large blocks of voting stock.
So now you're saying that the FDA exists to protect and serve institutional investors? If so, I say again, they're doing a lousy job because the multiples of drug companies are lagging the averages and that can't make institutional investors any happier than individual investors. Maybe, like me, they want their investments back from the FDA. My investment in Merck got killed by their decision on Vioxx. I'm on a roller coaster ride with Elan waiting for approvals. What the hell are they doing to me?
I've qualified product for the USDA as well. No you don't.
Of course. You know more than me because you've worked in the medical device business, did ISO 9001 compliances and wrote a book. I should thank you however, for offering your point of view because it will provide me great entertainment value when I share it with clients from Pfizer, Merck, P&G, Lilly and Schering Plough. I know our contacts at the FDA will also find humor in your perception of the relationship between them and industry.