Reforming FDAMike Rappaport

Alex Tabarrok offers this proposal:

The FDA significantly raises the costs of creating new drugs – thereare some benefits in better safety and efficacy but I think the currentsystem results in too much drug lag and drug loss.  I would cut back on FDA regulation considerably but I am not against more government-financed studiesof safety and efficacy.  Once a drug is on the market and especiallywhen it is off-patent, knowledge about the drug is a public good andthus often underprovided.  I would thus reduce the FDA’s control overdrug choice but increase the budget for drug information e.g. throughNIH financed studies like the Women’s Health Initiative which shockingly showed that then widely used homorone replacement therapy increased not decreased coronary disease.

It is amazing how much of what government now does coercively could be done better through noncoercive  actions.   Having FDA do drug studies is just one example.  Having the government certify rather than license is another.