I love how an economist with no understanding of exactly how difficult it is to definitively establish that a specific cause has a specific, but extremely rare, result has so much faith in "market mechanisms" to handle these issues.
I purposely gave an example where other factors complicate the relationship between the cause and effect. Real life situations are actually more complicated than my example. You did not give a specific mechanism by which the market would uncover the fact that my hypothetical drug has a minute chance of causing seizures. If making this discovery were up to the market, the drug would continue to be sold and no one would probably ever know about its side effect. With the FDA, however, a team of experts will look at the adverse reports data, crunch the numbers to determine if the seizures are caused by the drug, discuss their findings, and decide whether the benefits of the drug outweigh the risks. If they judge the risks too great, they will stop sale of the drug.
I just don't think that a UL type consortium for pharmaceuticals would arise spontaneously. Testing household appliances and so forth is easy; trying to figure out a drug's effect on the human body, and whether it is safe is incredibly complicated. A drug like my hypothetical, that has a 1/10,000 chance of causing a seizure disorder manifesting several weeks after use, will be found to be perfectly safe during clinical trials. It takes post-marketing surveillance to reveal a problem this small.
The FDA arose because the market allowed for all kinds of quackery and abuse. The particular naivety of libertarians is that they seem to have fundamental beliefs that no one would ever commit fraud and that "the market" is omnisciently aware of every bad product. There is no evidence to support either belief.
Even with the FDA, drug companies always maintain sophisticated databases of their drugs and long term effects.
They do this because the FDA requires it.
Utter B.S.
You will never have the intellectually ability to understand what true Liberty provides a civilization.
exDem? You sound like a "stillDem" Go ahead a put your trust in State Power.
Remember, the most destructive of all institutions created by man is government.
I stand by my position that the FDA had caused many more deaths than they professed to have saved.
I will always side with Liberty against State power. It's sad that so many people are blinded by the trickery of government.
What an arrogant and stupid thing to say. What a pathetic assumption. Companies who commit fraud would be punished legally. I never said any of the bullc*ap you wrote. You made irrational assumptions based on your belief that I am some idealistic libertarian.
I am not. I am a Conservative who believes that government is a necessary evil, not a force for good.