All Posts Tagged With: "FDA"

The Myth of Unregulated Tobacco

On June 22, President Obama signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (FSPTCA), a law that gives the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory authority over tobacco products. The law requires the FDA to develop a new tobacco-regulation center with all related costs to be covered by fees paid by the industry. [...]

19Aug2009 | Bruce Yandle | 0 comments | Continued

Raw Milk and the Sour State

Whether it is an expensive organic brand or simply carries a mega-chain store name, that milk has undergone pasteurization and homogenization. There is a growing subset of consumers who would prefer not to buy their milk this way. They want it unpasteurized, unhomogenized—in a word, “raw.”

20Jan2009 | William E. Pike | 6 comments | Continued

Unpleasant Economists

Economists are not the most pleasant people to have around when others are delightfully praising the benefits of this or that public policy. We acknowledge the existence of scarcity, the fact that to enjoy more of one thing requires having less of another, which in turn forces us into bringing up the unpleasant topic of [...]

1Sep2008 | Walter E. Williams | 0 comments | Continued

Book Reviews – March 2008

  • Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies

    by Bryan Caplan Reviewed by Dwight Lee
  • The Science of Success: How Market-Based Management Built the World
    1Mar2008 | George C. Leef | 0 comments | Continued

Pharmaceutical Profits and Health Are Inconsistent? It Just Ain’t So!

In a critical review of Richard Epstein’s book Overdose: How Excessive Government Regulation Stifles Pharmaceutical Innovation, Arnold Relman (The New Republic, July 30) criticizes drug companies for their hypocrisy. Contrasting the companies’ message to stockholders with their message to the larger world, he quotes Pfizer President Jeffrey Kindler’s statement that his goal is “to create [...]

1Nov2007 | David R. Henderson | 0 comments | Continued

Milton Friedman Is to Blame for Unsafe Food? It Just Ain’t So!

There is a “food safety crisis” in America and Milton Friedman is to blame, Princeton University economist Paul Krugman wrote on the New York Times op-ed page May 21. Friedman is responsible, Krugman wrote, because he legitimized a “sickening ideology” that rejects “even the most compelling” cases for government regulation of business.
Krugman’s “crisis” stems from [...]

1Oct2007 | Arthur E. Foulkes | 2 comments | Continued

Abolishing the FDA

Larry Van Heerden operates the Free-Market Medicine website.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) started out as a bulwark against snake-oil peddling. It has since swung back and forth between hostility and subservience to the drug industry. The FDA seems indifferent to the many deaths its own intransigence has caused and imperious when forced to defend [...]

1Mar2007 | Larry Van Heerden | 2 comments | Continued

Big Government — Big Risk

In his Freeman column last June, “The End Run to Freedom,” economist Russell Roberts makes the following argument: As people get wealthier, they demand more security. Their demand for security leads many people to favor the welfare state or the nanny state. The welfare state refers to a government that subsidizes people who bear losses; [...]

1Jan2007 | David R. Henderson | 3 comments | Continued

The New Drug War

Adam Summers is a freelance writer and a policy analyst at the Reason Foundation.
Seeking to combine the failures of the War on Drugs and the War on Poverty, the U.S. government has now embarked on the War on (Expensive) Prescription Drugs. You see, grannies crossing the northern border in search of cheaper prescription drugs are [...]

1Apr2004 | Adam B. Summers | 0 comments | Continued

A Sales Pitch for Laissez-Faire Health Care

A Health-Care System Based on Liberty, Property, and Consent Would Have Many Benefits

1Jul1995 | Daniel B. Klein | 1 comment | Continued

National Health Insurance: A Medical Disaster

Affordable health care has become one of the most important social issues of our time. Every news broadcast seems to have a special report on “America’s health care crisis” or a politician demanding “universal health insurance.” Evidence cited for the need for immediate and drastic government action includes:
High medical costs. The United States reportedly has [...]

1Oct1992 | Jarret B. Wollstein | 0 comments | Continued