Sorry, but your blind assumptions are insubstantiable. I was a research and development engineer in the medical device business, where the FDA was but one of my regulatory customers. In that position, not only did I invent products for a Fortune 200 company (Becton Dickinson), I wrote the ISO-9001 cmpliant design control system for the subsidiary they sold as well. I have qualified products both in the US, Canada, and the EU, and also obtained environmental permits abroad.
You can learn more about these corrupt mechanics by studying how they work in other markets. I wrote a whole book on their use in environmental regulation. Here is a post about how it works in the electrical power generating business. The game is old, huge, and not well understood.
You know, over the last couple of years I've noticed more 'loudmouths' with join dates of recent vintage trying to squelch all discussion on certain topics--especially those relating to limiting expansions of Federal power. Just an interesting trend I've been noticing.
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.