Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by jacoblyles 4581 days ago
I'd rather see them shut down the FDA than 23andMe
1 comments

I am not a big fan of possible snake oil even if it comes in hipster startup form.
Great, don't use it then. Why do you believe you have the right to tell other people what to buy for their money?
>> Why do you believe you have the right to tell other people what to buy for their money?

I am not doing that. The FDA is doing that. That is their job. If you disagree with that, you should also be okay with charlatans selling snake oil.

You are paying for it with your tax money, therefore you are doing it. I'm not okay with selling snake oil, but I think it is wrong to prevent other people from buying it. It's okay to inform them it's a bad idea to buy certain things - it's dictatorship to prevent them from doing so. If you can't convince somebody, it's your problem, not that person's problem. FDA doesn't convince, it just comes and shuts you down or doesn't allow you on the market.

Besides, where is FDA when charlatans sell homeopathic medicine? Show me a little consistency here.

I never said that the FDA is perfect or covers all bad cases. Just because a few bad apples can escape the law now, in letter, does not mean that we should not have regulation. Medical regulation is far from dictatorship. It is orthogonal to it.

Just because a govt. prevents from doing X, does not mean by default that the govt. is a dictatorship. X has to be something basic like the right to live or the right to free speech. The FDA is not brutishly shutting down 23andme. They seem to have reasonably tried to work with 23andme. But the startup has been stubborn.

You don't get my point. I'm questioning the existence of the FDA itself. What's your excuse for not letting each individual decide for himself what he wants to spend his money on? It's his money after all. He didn't ask you to pay for what he wants. What is your problem with that?