Wipes away wrinkles . . .
. . . beats erectile dysfunction, and keeps you alive for ever, too!
The federal Food and Drug Administration recently censured dermatologist Dr. Leslie Baumann for promoting a cosmetic drug before its FDA approval. According to the New York Times, this marks the first time the FDA has warned one of the investigators who oversees the clinical trials that lead to FDA review and, in some cases, approval for use by the public.
Depending on how you look at it, the Food and Drug Administration is either a basic requirement for exercising individual liberty, or the ultimate expression of the Nanny State. Which one is it?
There are few accounts of liberty that don’t assume people are capable of making informed choices. An extreme version of personal liberty would say that a person has total authority over what constitutes the good life. This would mean that a person has a right to take the most extreme risks to his life – or even take that life – so long as he commits no infringement of the liberties of others.
But even this liberty might need an FDA in our modern world. Without some basic information about food products and ever-evolving drugs, it would be difficult to know what kinds of risks we were taking on. But this would suggest an FDA that merely informs people, regulating only the flow of information–not the drugs themselves.
The FDA we have now makes some decisions for people. It does not approve all drugs, and heavily restricts the distribution of others.
But while some have viewed the warning to Dr. Baumann as a bold new step for the FDA, it actually falls in between the less active FDA that would be required to protect an individualistic liberty and the more paternalistic FDA. If researchers can promote drugs before their approval, the flow of accurate information is compromised. But the fact that the standard used is FDA approval of course entails the FDA actually playing a role in drug approval–and therefore also making decisions on our behalf.
Would it be possible to imagine a world in which we can trust doctors and researchers to self-police, promoting drugs only once they’ve surpassed the most rigorous standards?
As the nouveau saying goes: follow the money.
-Sam
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