One of the most pressing questions of modern biomedical research asks what the relationship between government regulation and scientific innovation is. Nothing is more common today than the plea that extensive government regulation, at every stage of the development process, is needed to protect innocent and uninformed patients and their families from exploitation by pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and physicians. The underlying assumption is that good-faith government regulators can fill the void between ordinary people and the self-interested institutions that dominate our private lives. Indeed, filling this void is the purpose of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which supervises pharmaceutical companies.
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