[bunderbunder]

> a function the market would have provided immediately.

This opinion would seem to be at odds with reality at large.

The reason the Food, Drug and Cosmetic act was passed in the first place is because of all the harm that the (then unregulated) pharmaceutical industry was doing. The market had centuries' worth of time to correct for people taking all sorts of drugs that actively kill people, and it didn't. It was only regulation that started to get the mess under control.

And it's the loopholes in regulation where things are worst. The supplement industry continues to do far more harm than good.

It's just possible that, despite the best efforts of some economists to argue that everyone is perfectly knowledgeable, rational, and emotionless in order to simplify their models, people continue to be merely human.