[jppittma]

What I hate about this argument is that the FDA does not predate civilization. In fact, it's a relatively recent development. Not only has this idea been tried, but throughout most of human history, people lived in the world you describe, died of salmonella, and the people who lived in that world decided they'd be better if that wasn't a thing anymore.

[madsbuch]

In the world predating didn't have single factories serving hundreds of millions of people - such a concentration of risk very much merits a FDA.

It is all about risk.

FDA enables civilization to grow above a certain threshold.