[pmulard]

The FDA has no place in a free market. If people trust a company which poisons their food, they should be punished for misplacing their trust. Both the scammer and the scammed deserve a share of the punishment. Life naturally punishes the scammed already and teaches them a lesson at the same time... Without the help of the FDA... How good is that?!

--

I'd much rather pool our money into a commission that does this for the population than spend every waking moment personally auditing companies for breaking the rules. Oh, and I have to set them too. No thanks.

[foooobaba]

I am also glad the FDA protects us from chemicals and ingredients that would cause processed food to be unhealthy and harmful, if they didn’t do that we would probably end up with an overweight population and tons of food related health problems.

[oblio]

That's the industry lobbying to prevent beneficial regulation for consumers so you're kind of making the opposite point to what you meant, I think.

[jowea]

There are governments taking action against junk food.

[AnthonyMouse]

> If people trust a company which poisons their food, they should be punished for misplacing their trust. Both the scammer and the scammed deserve a share of the punishment. Life naturally punishes the scammed already and teaches them a lesson at the same time... Without the help of the FDA... How good is that?!

If your food is poison, you don't have the opportunity to learn from your mistake and stop doing business with that company, because you die. If you don't eat any food, you still die.

But Coca Cola is fully FDA-approved -- even though it's bad for you. Because it doesn't immediately kill you, which gives you the opportunity to make your own choices and learn from your mistakes.

Which is how investments work. Some of them are better than others. The role of the government isn't to make the decision for you, it's to punish the people who deceive you. And since bad investments don't cause anaphylaxis or liver damage, the case for heavy-handed rules or pre-registration is missing.

If someone is running a ponzi or committing fraud, you arrest them, the same as you do if they're selling counterfeit electronics. If someone is just buying and selling cryptocurrency on the internet, which is the thing you purposely intended to exchange for your money, and they do nothing more than faithfully convey to you the thing you knowingly requested, what does the government need to regulate about it? Nothing nefarious is occurring.

[janosdebugs]

This sounds good in theory, but in a world where you can open companies by the dozen, international jurisdictions, no compulsory registration of company facilities, no private right of audit it's impossible to keep track of who is doing what. Additionally, tainting the news by flooding review sites and what not doesn't help either.

[paulddraper]

Yes

[pitaj]

How many people have died because of FDA gatekeeping delaying the release of life-saving treatment?

[cheriot]

What could possibly go wrong

> Bayer marketed diacetylmorphine as an over-the-counter drug under the trademark name Heroin.[91] It was developed chiefly as a morphine substitute for cough suppressants

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin

[clarkmoody]

How many drugs had FDA approval that was later retracted after much harm was done?

[bitvoid]

If the FDA didn't exist, how many more harmful drugs would there be? Would those harmful drugs that had approval retracted still be out there being prescribed?

Just because the FDA is not perfect does not mean that it's a net negative.

[jongjong]

I agree, FDA has no place in a free market. In a free market, companies would be able to sell poison to their customers... BUT, if something happened to the customers, they (or their estate) would be able to seek damages through the justice system. The problem we have with regulations is that they deflect responsibility... Any company can say "Look, we adhered to all the regulations" and use that as the basis to avoid taking responsibility if it turns out that the regulations were not adequate. Then they can just play the victim and demand more regulations. If you remove the regulator and just let the company deal directly with the consumer and don't let the government interfere with the free market to promote specific producers over others, then it would work itself out. The company would know that they have no regulatory shield to hide behind and they'll be forced to consider long-term implications of their decisions or face severe consequences and backlash from consumers.

[palmfacehn]

You have presented false alternatives.

Private regulation can exist inside of a free market. Consumers and producers of food or financial products can voluntarily participate with private ratings agencies. These standards can be higher or lower, based upon market preferences. The existence of a state backed monopoly is widely recognized as prohibitive to competition. State monopolies create issues around corruption, gatekeeping and more. Too many to expand upon here.

If you don't like free markets, that's fine. There's no need to misconstrue the options. The anti-market sentiment is somewhat surprising to see here.

https://mises.org/power-market/fda-approval-monopolists-sche...

https://www.greenchoicenow.com/v/food-pyramid-usda-dietary-g...

https://www.salon.com/2015/04/12/the_fdas_phony_nutrition_sc...

[RandomLensman]

There are no free markets in human societies. You can pick your trade-offs, that's it. Privatly regulated markets can fail, goverment regulated markets can fail.

[cool_dude85]

Why's it surprising to see anti-market sentiment when we've been given a very clear look at how the free market has operated in the crypto space sans government regulation? The whole ecosystem has been dominated by grifts, outright scams, rug pulls, ponzis, unregulated gambling, etc. etc. with no end in sight. Why didn't the free market step up?