[peyton]

> he is so sloppy with major decisions of life and death

To be clear, the FDA regulates marketing claims. “Is the label accurate?”

Major decisions about life and death are between the doctor and the patient, not the FDA.

It sounds like you’re taking an expansive view of this government agency’s mandate. People will push back on this at the ballot box, even if they can’t put it to words themselves.

[epistasis]

Far more significantly, the FDA regulates what is allowed to be marketed as treatment at all, an influence that extends heavily into what types of validation studies are performed, etc.

Such decisions, what treatments are available, are far more widespread and momentous than any individual decision between a doctor and a single patient, because they affect all conversations between doctors and patients.

> It sounds like you’re taking an expansive view of this government agency’s mandate

It sounds like you don't know what the FDA does in practice. It is not my supposed "view" it is the basic factual reality of the FDA for decades and decades. (And if you are asking for my view, I believe it has the appropriate level of control of the industry, having developed products directly under their regulation. My personal experience with the FDA, and the experience of all the people I know in similar situations, has been with a very astute and scientifically meritous institution, that worked hard to make sure that products see fair and rapid evaluation. At least, up until what I have seen under Vinay Prasad.)

[estearum]

The FDA regulates which drugs make it to market which is itself an extremely powerful force (excessively so) on conversations between you and your doctor.

In the case of vaccines, FDA's decisions can quite obviously make a difference in whether we have a rampant lethal pathogen roaring through our schools and killing our children and elderly... or not.

It's pedantic to the point of being outright false to say the FDA is not involved in major decisions of life and death. Silly take.