[n3rdy]

> There are countless therapies that are dangerous and/or ineffective and plenty of unscrupulous or incompetent people who want to flog them.

The FDA forces their own therapy of "do nothing for yourself" on the patient when the patient has run out of options. If something costs me my life, I don't care if something else would have cost me my fortune. At least my right to defend my own life would not have been infringed on by the FDA.

[CamperBob2]

The problem is, an entire industry would spring up to do nothing but separate the dying from their fortunes. We already have churches for that. The FDA is all that stands in the way of an equally massive industry of snake-oil sellers.

The problem is, people want to believe. That's a bug in our mental firmware. The FDA is an ugly, flawed, but arguably vital workaround for that bug. If you want to get rid of it, you need to offer another fix for the bug.

[n3rdy]

> The FDA is an ugly, flawed, but arguably vital workaround for that bug. If you want to get rid of it, you need to offer another fix for the bug.

Here is an idea of a work around.

First, FDA "recommendations" shouldn't be mandatory. Even things the FDA claims to be safe can be more harmful than some of the things that it warns are unsafe.

Second, There should be competing private agencies other than just the FDA. Their reputations would rely on how safe their "approved" medication and procedures turn out to be.

Third, A patient looking for a treatment should be able to look up the ratings of doctors, medications, procedures. If they find a potential scam artists, they will see the negative reviews and reports of patients who died under their care. They will have valuable information to make their medical decisions that they don't have today. The ratings and information would be maintained by private agencies and the FDA. Kind of like a credit score for doctors, medications, and medical procedures.

This obviously doesn't solve every single problem, but I think its a pretty good start.