[Retric]

Net deaths is what matters here. Obviously they aren’t perfect, but no human system is.

The market for effective drugs is global. FDA regulations have a significant but not that burdensome influence on drug discovery. At the other end, the opioid epidemic is a demonstration of just how many deaths can result from insufficient regulation of just a single drug family.

Which is why FDA regulations vs zero regulation have saved vastly more lives than they cost. Conservative estimates put it somewhere in the 2 orders of magnitude range.

[WalterBright]

> Which is why FDA regulations vs zero regulation have saved vastly more lives than they cost.

The first book I linked to did the research and showed otherwise. The key aspect usually not admitted is the deaths caused by drugs not developed due to costly regulations.

[Retric]

I hope you can understand why a book with a “Publication date ‏ : ‎ December 31, 1974” might have some gaps here in terms of relevant research and current regulations.

As to the leaded gas issue, that’s a function of less strict regulations allowing unleaded gas. Many countries have banned it without issue.

[WalterBright]

Peltzman had 10 years of statistical data to make the case. Any subsequent study that does not take into account lives saved by drugs never developed because of regulation costs is not a useful study.

As for leaded gas, the problem was changing the engine designs would require recertification so expensive that people just keep using 1960s engine designs.

Regulations have an effect of stifling new development - in drugs and airplane engines.

As for drugs, there is a way out. Allow legally consenting adults the right to sign a piece of paper stating that they understand that drug X is not approved by the FDA and they take it at their own risk.

[Retric]

> Peltzman had 10 years of statistical data to make the case. Any subsequent study that does not take into account lives saved by drugs never developed because of regulation costs is not a useful study.

You say that as if no such study exists. They do and the costs are known to reasonable levels of accuracy, what’s generally excluded is the benefit of drug regulations. Regulations on opioids alone (granted there’s a lot of opioids) have saved million of American lives since that book was published, but it’s easy to exclude such numbers if you want to make regulations look bad.

> As for leaded gas, the problem was changing the engine designs would require recertification so expensive that people just keep using 1960s engine designs.

Nope, ~80% of existing light aircraft in the US can 100% legally fly on unleaded gasoline. This isn’t a technical problem or the burden of regulations. This is a group of people that didn’t want to spend money because the transition isn’t free.

[WalterBright]

> Regulations on opioids alone (granted there’s a lot of opioids) have saved million of American lives since that book was published, but it’s easy to exclude such numbers if you want to make regulations look bad.

Opioids were approved by the FDA, and were by prescription only.

How did your studies account for drugs never developed? The rate of new drug development dropped drastically after the 1962 Amendments.

[Retric]

FDA: Food and Drug Administration

By prescription only is a regulation. Without that Coca-Cola would still have coca leaves.

> drugs never developed

The way you get good data on that is to look at the actual drug discovery process and how decisions are made.

Automated in vitro testing has been used, but the number of potential compounds make that impractical even with essentially zero regulation at that point. Once you get down to some actual evidence for a drug funding is surprisingly plentiful. The often quoted 2 billion per drug includes all the failures, for any given candidate the cost is low at every individual stage until you have something with significant promise. Which makes sense as the average drug is worth vastly more than 2 billion so at every stage further investment looks viable.