Jump to content
Objectivism Online Forum

Food and drug industry regulation

Rate this topic


Recommended Posts

JMeganSnow reports on the American Association of Tissue Banks, a voluntary agency that sets standards for its members.

. . . being able to put the "AATB certified" stamp on your staff and your products makes a big difference in where/how/when you can sell your products. And this was in a relatively UNCOMPETITIVE industry: there are SIX, count them, SIX tissue banks in the United States and their areas of operation don't overlap very much--each one is very nearly a monopoly in their area.

Something to think about.

Yes, something to think about. I tried to find out how JMegan came up with the SIX, count them, SIX tissue banks in the US, without success. I note that Ohio alone has 72 tissue banks registered with the FDA. According to a report by Harvard law student Mary Wang, in 2002 68 tissue banks were accredited by the AATB. I note that the AATB processes and procedures form the bulk of the industry standards that FDA regulations enforce. I see no way to conclude that trade in human tissues is an UNCOMPETITIVE industry. What compels the industry to sell its products? One might imagine that the AATB strictures and policies are altruistic (in the sense of a Public Interest), but note that hundreds of companies do not belong to the AATB.

For those who wonder what the issues are that might rationally require strict oversight (whether from AATB or FDA), there is a decent 2002 article from the New York Times, Lack of oversight in tissue donations raising concerns

It's a kind of creepy, interesting world of human tissue markets/industries. I'm one of those people who wants the highest, most rational standards applied to the harvesting and sales of the products.

What is most interesting to me is that in an entirely unregulated food and drug industry, some stuffs can reach the market that are tainted or otherwise dangerous in themselves.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

how would you apply this concept to the supplement industry.

If you mean how would a laissez-faire approach to supplements work in the real world, I suggest you have a gander at some of the watchdog sites that monitor the scammers and fraudsters in the supplement industry, such as Supplement Genius

There are some toe-curling stories of truly venal operations. My favourite is the Stiff Nights 'all natural' male-enhancement pill sold until recently . . . the secret in the mix was an analogue to the active ingredient in Viagra. Remember that Viagra's erectile properties were discovered in testing a blood-pressure reduction medication. So, taking Stiff Nights means you can lower your blood pressure. Good thing to have on the label, right? Well, not for the manufacturer. The FDA got wind of this fraud via customer complaints.

My question concerns those Stiff Nights customers. In the absence of an FDA, who would the customer complain to -- the police? the neighbours? the courts?

What is the recourse to someone damaged by a mislabeled or otherwise fraudulent product? Is the customer's only choice in a laissez-faire world to bring civil suit after the fact? Me, I don't see the horror in an investigatory regime funded by the public purse that has the power to intervene before death and damage occur. I made the comparison earlier between traffic regulation and the rules of the road. I wonder if a laissez-faire approach to road safety would show the same dividends of a laissez-faire approach to food and drug safety. Laws of the road, or standard rules and regulations might be rationally justified under Objectivism. Why not laws on food and drugs (and supplements)? Perhaps a completely rational society infused with Objectivism would get by with a simple "Be Safe, Everyone!"

JMegan suggests "You can go all over the place and get tons of information about supplements." No dispute there. But where do you go to find out that Stiff Nights contains an active ingredient that is not on the label? In the case of Stiff Nights, you can go to their website . . . Stiffnights.com, and discover that the ingredient list does not contain the active ingredient . . . and then?

Well, one can find warnings from the . . . that's right, FDA. What will replace the FDA testing and exposure of this scam under Objectivism? JMegan suggests "a lot of people don't seem to value their health and well-being enough to be really proactive in evaluating supplements." This statement would seem to mean that someone damaged by StiffNights should have investigated. Fair enough, but where and how? Who but the FDA will be likely to test the substance and publish a warning?

I just don't get that supplement producers can lie and peddle dangerous 'all natural' and the consumer must somehow be charged with finding out the fraud on his or her own . . .

I note that the FDA is likely gearing up to stamp out Stiff Nights as it has seized and destroyed other products:

"they seized more than 14,000 dosages of products known as

Shangai Regular, Shangai Ultra, Super Shangai, Naturalë

Super Plus, and Lady Shangai. [ . . . ] In July 2008, the

Marshals seized specific lots of illegal Xiadafil VIP

tablets distributed by SEI Pharmaceuticals Inc. (SEI) of

Miami, Fla. The total worth of the seized tablets neared

$74,000.

In both cases, the firms prompted FDA enforcement by

failing to act after being notified of the potential

adverse health risks posed by the products.

It could be that under Objectivism, there would be no FDA. But I wonder if Objectivism would allow US Marshals to seize and destroy products such as these, or if Objectivism might allow a law against adulteration, and allow policing of such scams.

For more sad/funny/chilling tales of supplement scams, see Supplement Genius's 25 Top Worst Supplement Scans of 2009

Edited by William Scott Scherk
Link to comment
Share on other sites

But I wonder if Objectivism would allow US Marshals to seize and destroy products such as these, or if Objectivism might allow a law against adulteration, and allow policing of such scams.

Yes. Objectivism considers fraud initiation of force. The example you described is fraud, and the government should detect and punish it. However, your argument is that the FDA did one thing right, therefor it is a legitimate organization. That makes no sense. It's pretty obvious that the main job of the FDA today is not fraud detection. The FDA is the organization from which one has to seek approval, before one sells any drugs. That means they are the institution which prevents me from freely selling drugs which are labeled correctly. Objectivism is opposed to that practice, not fraud detection, just as it is opposed to the practice of the government trying to prevent any other crimes by depriving an entire category of people, many of them innocent, of their rights. (I'm sure you'd object to locking up all Muslims to prevent terrorism by a few, even though you seem to approve of depriving all drug makers of the right to sell their products freely, to prevent fraud by a few)

If you wish to justify the existence of the FDA, you should bring examples of business ventures which do not constitute fraud, and yet morally justify the use of government force against them. That is common practice today, on the part of the FDA, so if you're defending the FDA, defend that. That is what we object to.

Edited by Jake_Ellison
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jake answers my query: "Objectivism would allow US Marshals to seize and destroy products such as these, or if Objectivism might allow a law against adulteration, and allow policing of such scams."

Yes. Objectivism considers fraud initiation of force. The example you described is fraud, and the government should detect and punish it.

Well, if under Objectivism, a law against adulteration might exist, and a law that allows policing of such scams might exists, I am left wondering just how this would work. If Stiff Nights is investigated, and its product found to be adulterated, who does the investigating? Or rather, what part or arm or agency of the government would be charged with these tasks?

Here's what I don't quite get: there is and will be a Fraud Squad, one that has powers to obtain search warrants, and so on. If a customer/consumer contacts the Fraud Squad and says Zyprexa is mislabeled and mismarketed, what next?

A corollary is the question of what the detecting/investigating agency would do if it was alerted that a whole type of Stiffy-type supplements probably contain a powerful blood pressure reducer. Would they investigate all those products? How does the detective differentiate between the innocent Stiffies and the adulterated Stiffies?

What is the crime to be detected, in actuality? It isn't simply a generic fraud, it is selling a drug as a so-called dietary supplement. If an Objectivist government has the right/power to police such things, how will this power be constituted? Will it be pro-active and investigate widely, or only respond to particular, individual complaints?

How would you want the tissue banks to be policed, Jake -- as a potential customer, right now?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, something to think about. I tried to find out how JMegan came up with the SIX, count them, SIX tissue banks in the US, without success.

The info I have comes from my time working at Community Tissue Services in Dayton, and they may be counting different businesses as tissue banks. The AATB *also* inspects fertility clinics that store eggs and sperm, like the one in Palo Alto run by my aunt. CTS also has numerous branches that are EACH accredited SEPARATELY, which will also account for quite a bit of the discrepancy. OPO's (organ procurement organizations) are NOT tissue banks--they are government agencies, and they don't process or store tissue the way a tissue bank does because organs just can't be treated that way.

I can tell you that there definitely aren't seventy-two tissue banks of the type I worked for in Ohio because there's no way procurement could support that many. We procured from centers in Fresno (California), Toledo, Dayton, Portland (Oregon), Fort Worth (Texas), Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania), and we'd just acquired a new branch in Kentucky when I left. Techs would drive three, sometimes four hours out to procurements, and ALL of the tissue from ALL of those centers was processed at the Dayton location by twenty-some-odd people.

Tissue and organ banking is a weird and specialized industry that is divided up into all sorts of odd little compartments. It wasn't regulated by the FDA at ALL until 1991, IIRC.

Your numbers on Lilly are basically meaningless. So they ate a couple of billion worth of settlement. Are they out of business? GOING out of business? The settlement is them paying their protection money to the thugs in Washington, nothing more, nothing less. They still have no incentive to "tell the truth" by FDA standards simply because it is impossible to KNOW ahead of time what the FDA will consider to be "the truth". Lilly and other big pharma are just like the banks that wrote off loans distributed through ACORN--they consider it part of the cost of doing business. In return, the gov't makes it almost impossible for small competitors to operate: they can't afford to test 5000 compounds to get maybe two or three that can make it through the FDA approval process.

"Mega" corporations like Lilly are living examples of the operation of economic fascism. They live in a world where some days you eat the bear (i.e. you get money as a result of gov't policies) and some days the bear eats you (i.e. you lose money as a result of gov't policies), but the real operation of the market is about as relevant as Scientology.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How would you want the tissue banks to be policed, Jake -- as a potential customer, right now?

The same way I would like myself to be policed: without violating people's rights. Unless you are familiar with the concept of rights, you're not going to understand the distinction between regulation and crime fighting, so this conversation is absolutely pointless. The fact that you seemed to ignore my point completely, and continued explaining how there is no way to police something without regulating it, pretty much tells me that you don't care to understand. If that is so, I can't explain it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, there is a huge difference between these two ideas:

  • The proper function of a government is to protect people.
  • The proper function of a government is to protect people's rights.

Unless we understand the difference, debates on regulation and "crime prevention" are pointless.

Edited by Hotu Matua
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, there is a huge difference between these two ideas:

  • The proper function of a government is to protect people.
  • The proper function of a government is to protect people's rights.

Unless we understand the difference, debates on regulation and "crime prevention" are pointless.

In an earlier post Jake_Ellison categorized fraud as an initiation of force. Does that violate a right? If so, is a proper function of government to protect people from fraud?

Since the answers to those questions are yes, I'll ask some more;

1. Is a company that knowingly puts out a product that is or could be harmful to its customers, even if used properly, without informing those customers about the risks associated with using that product defrauding their customers?

2. If this is the case, and I ask this in particular of Jake_Ellison, is an agency such as the FDA not necessary to police and prosecute those companies that knowingly defraud their customers?

3. And since preventing a violation of rights is prefferable to undertaking the often impossible task of trying to fairly compensate a party whose rights have been violated, is it not the case that an agency such as the FDA would operate most effectively as a kind of permission-giver whose standards must be met in order to release a product into the market?

Edited by Rawls was Right
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2. If this is the case, and I ask this in particular of Jake_Ellison, is an agency such as the FDA not necessary to police and prosecute those companies that knowingly defraud their customers?

No. An agency such as the FBI might be necessary, in the US, but definitely not one that resembles the FDA. The FDA isn't policing and prosecuting criminals, it is regulating the drug industry. Specifically, the law abiding portion of that industry (since the criminals can and will ignore overbearing regulations just as easily as they ignore the anti-fraud laws, as evidenced by the massive illegal drug trade in both prescription and fully illegal drugs, in the US)

3. And since preventing a violation of rights is prefferable to undertaking the often impossible task of trying to fairly compensate a party whose rights have been violated, is it not the case that an agency such as the FDA would operate most effectively as a kind of permission-giver whose standards must be met in order to release a product into the market?

No. A permission-giver might operate effectively in policing a group of insects, wolves, or even small children, but when it comes to a society of grown men, asking for and giving permission from an authority is the most irrational, anti-human and immoral thing short of full blown slavery, as I explain in my second post in the thread.

Even from a purely practical perspective, on top of not stopping dangerous drugs (it just drives a lot of the drug trade underground, making it more dangerous than it needs to be), it also stifles innovation in the industry, by putting everyone through a hugely ineffective bureaucracy.

Edited by Jake_Ellison
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3. And since preventing a violation of rights is prefferable to undertaking the often impossible task of trying to fairly compensate a party whose rights have been violated, is it not the case that an agency such as the FDA would operate most effectively as a kind of permission-giver whose standards must be met in order to release a product into the market?
Do you think we should also get certificates from the government to allow us to do all the things we do everyday? Should the government licence me as being trustworthy as an employee? as being safe around women? as being a good parent?
Link to comment
Share on other sites

No. A permission-giver might operate effectively in policing a group of insects, mammals, or even small children, but when it comes to a society of grown men, asking for and giving permission from an authority is the most irrational, anti-human and immoral thing short of full blown slavery, as I explain in my second post in the thread.

Even from a purely practical perspective, on top of not stopping dangerous drugs (it just drives a lot of the drug trade underground, making it more dangerous than it needs to be), it also stifles innovation in the industry, by putting everyone through a hugely ineffective bureaucracy.

Technically men are mammals, even grown ones.

Joking aside, do you find security checkpoints irrational, anti-human and immoral? Moreover, do you feel that the right of drug companies to not have to be given permission to ply their trade outweighs the rights of society as a whole to not be defrauded?

Do you think we should also get certificates from the government to allow us to do all the things we do everyday? Should the government licence me as being trustworthy as an employee? as being safe around women? as being a good parent?

No, but it is a mistake to conflate your agency to violate the rights of others with that of an entity such as a pharmaceutical company. Different levels of dangers appropriate different responses.

Edited by Rawls was Right
Link to comment
Share on other sites

No, but it is a mistake to conflate your agency to violate the rights of others with that of an entity such as a pharmaceutical company. Different levels of dangers appropriate different responses.
And, do you believe such an agency should even stop those consumers who say they understand the agencies concerns, but want to buy and consume the drug/food anyway?
Link to comment
Share on other sites

do you find security checkpoints irrational, anti-human and immoral?

It depends. If the government decided to set up a security checkpoint on my property, and search my guests or customers, absolutely.

Moreover, do you feel that the right of drug companies to not have to be given permission to ply their trade outweighs the rights of society as a whole to not be defrauded?

Rights, properly defined, don't conflict, so the question of one person't rights outweighing another's is a moot point. I don't know what you mean by defrauding society as a whole, but as far as defrauding people, that is not the logical consequence of recognizing a company's right to free trade any more than me killing someone is the logical consequence of being allowed to leave my apartment.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And, do you believe such an agency should even stop those consumers who say they understand the agencies concerns, but want to buy and consume the drug/food anyway?

You can make an argument for both sides. Obviously stopping the consumer from purchasing a product is violating their rights. But then you have to ask yourself, "What do they intend to do with a food/drug that they know to be harmful anyway?" The only moral use for such a thing to self-inflict harm, and if you were to consider everyone as a rational, self-interested person you could be reasonably sure they didn't want to harm themselves.

It depends. If the government decided to set up a security checkpoint on my property, and search my guests or customers, absolutely.

Rights, properly defined, don't conflict, so the question of one person't rights outweighing another's is a moot point. I don't know what you mean by defrauding society as a whole, but as far as defrauding people, that is not the logical consequence of recognizing a company's right to free trade any more than me killing someone is the logical consequence of being allowed to leave my apartment.

The FDA as a security checkpoint has more in common with an airport security checkpoint than your example of a government checkpoint on your property. Principle of charity and all that. :P

I guess you need to define 'free trade' for me then because I am operating under the assumption that a part of 'free trade' is 'the freedom to sell a product to a person under fraudulent circumstances', which conflicts, as you have said yourself, with a person's right not to be defrauded, a right which the government is duty-bound to preserve.

Edited by Rawls was Right
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The FDA as a security checkpoint has more in common with an airport security checkpoint than your example of a government checkpoint on your property. Principle of charity and all that. :P

I'll agre to disagree on that, and wait for an actual argument (something other than an analogy)

I guess you need to define 'free trade' for me then because I am operating under the assumption that a part of 'free trade' is 'the freedom to sell a product to a person under fraudulent circumstances'.

Don't. The freedom to act in the context of a society is the freedom to act without violating other people's freedom to do the same (their individual rights). The freedom to act involves the freedom to trade, also without violating people's rights. The only way to violate someone's rights is through initiation of force.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You can make an argument for both sides. Obviously stopping the consumer from purchasing a product is violating their rights. But then you have to ask yourself, "What do they intend to do with a food/drug that they know to be harmful anyway?" The only moral use for such a thing to self-inflict harm, and if you were to consider everyone as a rational, self-interested person you could be reasonably sure they didn't want to harm themselves.
If one does not have the right to be irrational (in the government's view) rights are meaningless, no?
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll agre to disagree on that, and wait for an actual argument (something other than an analogy)

Here's the argument, in Socratic form:

1. Is a company that knowingly puts out a product that is or could be harmful to its customers, even if used properly, without informing those customers about the risks associated with using that product defrauding their customers?

2. If this is the case, and I ask this in particular of Jake_Ellison, is an agency such as the FDA not necessary to police and prosecute those companies that knowingly defraud their customers?

3. And since preventing a violation of rights is prefferable to undertaking the often impossible task of trying to fairly compensate a party whose rights have been violated, is it not the case that an agency such as the FDA would operate most effectively as a kind of permission-giver whose standards must be met in order to release a product into the market?

Don't. The freedom to act in the context of a society is the freedom to act without violating other people's freedom to do the same (their individual rights). The freedom to act involves the freedom to trade, also without violating people's rights. The only way to violate someone's rights is through initiation of force.

Aaaaaand...

Yes. Objectivism considers fraud initiation of force.

What else do I need to do?

Edited by Rawls was Right
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If one does not have the right to be irrational (in the government's view) rights are meaningless, no?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but according to Objectivist philosophy THE defining characteristic of a person who is in possession of rights is the ability to think rationally. This implies that you give up your personhood, and therefore your rights, when you are unable to think rationally. Again, please correct me if I am wrong.

*** Mod's note ***

This has led to some discussion about whether non-rational men have rights,

and also whether men can be irrational in the first place.

This has been split into a separate thread: here.

- sN

*** End Mod's note ***

Edited by softwareNerd
Split thread
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Only if you wish to continue the conversation. You're the one who asked for clarification, I'm perfectly happy with my old posts on the issue, and can't think of a single thing to add.

The facts don't agree with your premises, to put it mildly. I see no reason to further debate an argument that has nothing to do with Reality. The first of the three R's.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So, it turns out that the cure for cancer and cure for AIDS is being delayed and stifled by

- Penis Enlargement Pills

- Drugs that don't work

- Drugs that didn't get the approval, but are being used in Europe

And we could have private administration agencies that approve drugs successfully, who must compete to do so.. and it won't take 500 years to do it.

Edited by Black Wolf
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...