Guest opinion column by Peter Churchman
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is killing Americans. It does so in the following ways:
-drawing out the process to approve drugs that are needed by sick people,
-reducing affordability due to the cost of unnecessary FDA testing,
-stopping importation of prescription drugs from other countries,
-deeming certain drugs as questionably safe.
I’ve had enough of this big government agency that doesn’t provide safer drugs and also harms Americans. The FDA is an unneeded problem for us.
Researchers at the Center for the Study of Drug Development estimate the cost of developing a drug has multiplied 6 times in the last quarter century due to an increase in FDA testing requirements. Consequently, innovators of life saving medications have had to increase the prices. While this effects everyone, it especially hurts low income people. Astronomical medication costs lead to people unable to afford their medicine, resulting in poor health outcomes.
The FDA limits the invisible hand of the free market by stopping importation of medications. The FDA hinders the use of drugs deemed safe outside the US with excessive regulations. If US citizens had access to imported medications, it would facilitate market competition leading to lower prices.
Increased testing hasn’t improved our drugs. Drugs taken off the market due to negative side effects has maintained at 3.3% for decades. FDA regulations haven’t improved that percentage. One of the worst follies of the FDA was the 1999 approval of an arthritis drug Vioxx. It was removed in 2004 after it was linked to 140,000 heart attacks. That’s but one of a multitude of drugs removed that have had unintended consequences despite FDA approval. The FDA hasn’t improved drug safety, but it has increased their cost and impeded market release.
The FDA not only adds cost to our drugs, but it prevents them from being prescribed by doctors for years due to increased testing that has nothing to do with safety. The longest and most expensive part of gaining FDA approval tests a drug’s efficacy and has little to do with safety. An untold amount of people will not be given a new drug for years, when it may very well be to late, because the FDA draws out the testing process.
The FDA has only increased the cost of our drugs, made them less available to many people, let sick people suffer unduly when a new drug was available, and done nothing to increase the safety of drugs. It is time to do away with this agency.
Peter Churchman can be contacted at PeterChurchman@ChurchmanforTexas.com, facebook.com/ElectPeterChurchman or on Twitter @ChurchmanTX17
Provided/Churchman