Most consumers in the US put their blind faith into large federal bureaucracies which do not make their lives any better or safer. The media has made us keenly aware of the recent TSA overreach which the govt justifies by “making us safer”. But there is a constant stream of counter-productive measures taken by our regulatory agencies. The most recent one is from the FDA where they actually approved an organic herbal tea with cocaine [1] in it.
While I will chalk the latest FDA folly to shear incompetence, they also intentionally keep other products off the shelves, often spending 10 years or more to approve life saving drugs [2]. Then with a press release, the FDA will claim that the newly approved drug will save 10,000/year without mention that 100,000 probably died waiting for the drug.
Proponents of the FDA will claim that without such an agency evil Capitalist witch doctors will sell innocent dumb citizens fake elixirs and poisons for a quick profit. Nevermind that consumers will stop being so dumb and won’t buy cancer cures off the back of a pickup truck and 3rd party watchdog/consumer rating groups will do a much better job of testing and tracking foods and drugs than the government could ever hope to do.
