Just a handful of blots on the history of The Atlantic to document today, thankfully.
Spanking kills . . . your soul: As always, Megan doesn't need to read a study to summarily dismiss it. Who ever heard of a valid study contradicting our preconceived notions? If Megan didn't already know it, it ain't true.
We're not safe, but at least we're broke!: It's hard to disagree with the idea that the Dep't of Homeland Security is an almost total joke, unless you're on its payroll. This, of course, proves that any and all government initiatives will fail, SO DON'T TRY TO HELP PEOPLE, unless we're talking about an unproven and easily manipulated new system to replace the national school system, of course. Health care is not also an exception, because Megan doesn't want it. I'd mock her argument for this, but that'd require her to have an argument. Megan sez so, which should be enough for all of us poor peasant types.
On approval:
Call me a crazy libertarian, but shouldn't regulatory approval get you a pass on lawsuits? I mean, obviously, if you mislead the Feds, you should be subject to criminal prosecution. But I don't understand quite why FDA approval of drugs and medical devices hasn't long provided legal safe harbor for their manufacturers. The defects that show up, such as the Vioxx and Fen-Phen problems, are discovered long after approval precisely because they're so rare that they don't show up in ordinary clinical trials. If the government experts, who are presumably highly motivated to avoid catastrophes, can't spot the danger, why do we expect the drug companies too [sic]?You gotta love that. Megan takes two widely known examples of how the FDA, after having its regulatory powers gutted by Gingrich's Congress and then the Bush Admin, failed in its mission as an argument against penalizing the Big Pharma companies who paid to have their industry deregulated for the consequences of that move. And really, why expect an industry which exists to save lives not to screw up and end them? Dead people are basically spillage, and you write them off as the cost of doing business. Remember, the crazy libertarian wants corporations to have freedom, even if their individual customers are too dead to be free. What matters most is profit, not saving lives.
Besides, it's not as if Merck had long known Vioxx was potentially dangerous and suppressed that info. Why would Megan want to point out that aspect of the situation? It'd only show how biased she is in her presentation and completely undermine her argument.
She's still a plain ole stupid corporate enabler, but at least she seems to be off the speed. Guess she can only tweak for a week or so. Lightweight.
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1 comment:
Call me a crazy libertarian
Can I call you an idiot instead?
but shouldn't regulatory approval get you a pass on lawsuits?
No. It should, however, enable a plaintiff to include the federal government as a defendant in a lawsuit.
The defects that show up, such as the Vioxx and Fen-Phen problems, are discovered long after approval precisely because they're so rare that they don't show up in ordinary clinical trials.
That could be true, yes. And I'm willing to stipulate that, in many cases, it actually is true. But you can't assume that it's the only reason these problems aren't discovered earlier. Other possibilities include inspector incompetence, an unmanageable workload at the FDA, poorly-designed clinical trials, or intentional deception on the part of the manufacturer. I'm sure there are more, but that's just what I came up with in the 30 seconds it took me to write this paragraph.
If the government experts, who are presumably highly motivated to avoid catastrophes, can't spot the danger, why do we expect the drug companies too [sic]?
Of course, you're assuming these government experts are actually motivated to protect the public good, and not to protect the interests of large corporate entities that donate generously to the Republican Party. Read a bit of the public choice literature, Megan - it's really a fascinating subfield of economics. Of course, I'm assuming you're actually motivated to know a bit about the things you write about, and we all know how assumptions can sometimes work out.
What's really interesting to me is how Megan, who normally expresses a profound lack of faith in the federal government's ability to do anything worthwhile, does a complete 180 here on the issue of the competence of FDA inspectors. Thus proving that brad is right, and McMegan is not a libertarian so much as a corporate shill.
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