The Food and Drug Administration is notoriously allergic to the concept of tradeoffs: FDA bureaucrats see eliminating risk as their highest goal, no matter what benefits might be destroyed in the process. This tendency has manifested itself most tragically in the current drug shortage. About 150 drugs considered “medically necessary,” including anesthetics and medications that treat lethal illnesses such as leukemia, are today in shortage. This problem has been growing since at least 2005, and there are several causes for it — but overly stringent FDA regulations are one reason it has reached such immense proportions. Since the “tainted drugs”...