8 thoughts on “When Regulation Kills”

1. I figure a sane way for the FDA to classify drugs is on a 2 axis scale, safety and effectiveness. A brand new drug, with not much testing, would be uncertified, legal to distribute so long as proper disclaimers are applied. Testing to demonstrate safety and effectiveness would advance it on those scales. Experience demonstrating the drug has safety problems would move it backwards on the safety scale, and may add restrictions on use.

2. Had they actually sent ZMapp to Africa first and some of the infected happened to still die they would just claim that the medicine was contaminated somehow just like they prevent vaccination campaigns there as well. It is a good thing the US tested it on its own citizens first as now they think this is the bee’s knees.
   These regulations exist for a reason. I still hope the prolonged test periods will eventually be replaced by much faster computer simulation but the fact is he do not know enough about human physiology to do something like that yet.

   1. Also the number of ebola cases in the US is quite limited and the FDA’s arm does not regulate the distribution of medicines in African countries.

      1. I was unaware that the US has ever had a case of Ebola, with the current exception of the two folks chosen to be brought back to the US after infection.

3. I don’t think regulations played a role as much as moderately conservative testing of an experimental drug. They apparently didn’t have that much of the drug at the time. Awful hard to treat hundreds or thousands of people, if you only have a handful of doses and no serious manufacture capability.

4. Hi Rand, I will have to do this in three posts because of your spam filter…

   This isn’t news. As someone who has lived with severe asthma since I was 3 years old federal regulations have been threatening my life and health for years, and have likely killed thousands of other Americans with asthma.

   http://phys.org/news173557435.html

   Trying to inhale: Asthma sufferers say CFC-free inhalers aren’t as effective
   Sep 30, 2009 By Deborah Shelton

   [[[Months after a federal ban went into effect outlawing a propellant used in most rescue inhalers, some asthma sufferers insist that the replacement inhalers don’t work and might even be harmful.]]]

5. http://www.consumeraffairs.com/asthma-inhaler-safety-and-problems

   Victims of Government: Asthma Patients’ Lives Shattered by ‘Green’ Inhalers
   Previously healthy asthma sufferers wind up disabled — and worse
   09/08/2009 | ConsumerAffairs

   [[[On a good day, Victoria O. can walk from her house to the driveway without stopping to catch her breath. But those days are rare for this Florida woman, who has what doctors call severe airflow obstruction.

   I struggle to breathe all the time, she explains, wheezing between her words. I’m 43 years old. I should be enjoying my life. I used to have an active life, but I went from a normal person to a very sick person.]]]

   And the destruction of lives continues.

   http://www.consumeraffairs.com/asthma-inhaler-safety-and-problems

   Last of the aerosol asthma inhalers will soon be gone
   Asthma, COPD patients sacrificed for environmental preservation
   05/29/2013 | ConsumerAffairs

6. But hey, who cares about asthmatics? We need to listen to the wise heroic climate scientists with their climate models that show us how to protect the Earth.

   http://www.hilltromper.com/article/susan-solomon-michael-mann-UCSC-climate-change-conference

   Pioneering ozone hole researcher Susan Solomon and “hockey stick graph” climatologist Michael Mann speak at UC–Santa Cruz during a national climate science conference Feb. 28-March 1.

   [[[Feb. 24, 2014—Susan Solomon is responsible for a lot of change at your house. It’s partly due to her that refrigerators don’t use freon anymore, that hair spray is now made with relatively benign aerosols like ethanol or butane and that the strawberry fumigant methyl bromide has been outlawed.]]]

   Of course the millions of suffering asthmatics along with the likely thousands who have died as a result of the extreme regulations are not discussed.

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