The Terrible Cost of FDA Regulation
ShrinkWrapped expands on the terrible cost imposed upon progress by the FDA: "The development of our cumbersome and onerous regulatory environment that will slow the availability of drugs to those who would benefit from it is a sad story of missed opportunities and risk aversion ... the FDA was established and set up a framework for approving drugs only after they were shown to be safe and effective. The terrible problem for medicine is that there is no such thing as a drug that can be proven to be completely safe. ... On every level it makes sense for us to develop anti-aging treatments. Losing the abilities of those who are most skilled and experienced on a regular basis is wasteful of human resources. Yet our current regulatory environment not only precludes developing drugs that could slow aging, but makes studies to show their safety and effectiveness impossible to perform. ... as in any bureaucracy, the FDA is not going to be able to modify its mandate without a tremendous push from those most likely to be effected by their conservatism."
Link: http://shrinkwrapped.blogs.com/blog/2008/04/biology-as-info.html