Survey: Half of US doctors use placebo treatments

[DuncanONeil]

I'm not claiming the government is perfect or reputable. I'm saying that they can better set standards for testing of drugs then the drug companies themselves who have competing interests. Suggesting the drug companies themselves would be able to do a better job at setting the standards would be akin to suggesting the fox should guard the chicken coup.

With everything having to be "approved" by the FDA, anything that makes it through the process is considered safe by the people! Since the trials are actually conducted by the producer it is easy to fudge the data if youo so choose.
The fox/hen house is not a suitable analogy. The fox is seeking food, i.e. survival. In business if you "eat" your customers you are out of business. Were "certification" voluntary it is easy to surmise that people will, except in a very few cases, choose that "certified" product. Further if the Government is not directly involved it would likely be quicker and less expensive.

And yes I believe, with evidence that some powerful individuals in any business take shortcuts for person gain at the expense of others, including customers, other employees and the companies they work for. I'm not saying this is everyone, but it does exist in every business. Unfortunately we need regulations and they need to be enforced. Madoff got reported to the SEC 10 years before they did anything, if they actually bothered to do their jobs a lot of people wouldn't have lost their life savings to a ponzi scheme.

"(L)ost their life savings to a ponzi scheme." You mean like Social Security? Yes, bad people do exist. But does that mean that the rest must suffer in an attempt to control the few? It may seem to be not appropriate, but is indicative of the Government thought process. People know that riding a motorcycle without a helmet poses additional risk, They choose to do so. Yet various governments have enacted laws that REQUIRE motorcycle riders to wear helmets. I live in such a place and yet see many riders without helmets. To carry your logic into this arena all manufacturers should be required to make helmets part of the motorcycle.
Were people to have a choice between a "tested" & "certified" product vs one that is not they will choose that which they believe is best for them. If that is the "tested" & "certified" than those concerns that elected to forego such certification would either go out of business or submit to testing.

Things like fraud, cooking the books, and other loopholes and exploits happen all the time. People have killed inspectors to protect mining frauds. It happens in all avenues of life a lot of the time. It may only be a small percentage of people in their worst moments, but people do need protection from said individuals.

First of all a "loophole" implies that regulation is already in place. That is a major problem with regulation! "People have killed inspectors to protect mining frauds. It happens in all avenues of life a lot of the time." I suspect that this is a historical event. The second sentence implies that inspectors are being killed even today!

Do you honestly believe that every single individual who needs to bump up the revenue figures for the quarter or face losing their job would choose to lose the job over releasing a drug that will work and sell, but may have serious side effects? I think history shows that at least some individuals will choose to release the drug and save the job. Only regulations disallowing this choice (need proper testing to be able to release the drug) save us from these individuals. And these individuals are out there even Bush or Cheney referred to them as "a few bad apples".

Approved drugs are on the market that actually have a side effect of DEATH. Seems to me that the process is not serving us as it should!

The fact is there are people who behave badly, many of them very successful. The regulations can be a pain in the ass for those who behave properly 100% of the time, but that doesn't mean they aren't needed. All it takes is one bad decision in one moment of weakness to cause a serious problem. The regulations do a lot to prevent that.

Regulations do nothing to prevent; "people who behave badly" or "one bad decision in one moment of weakness to cause a serious problem". All the regulation can do is provide an additional means to punish that particular individual!
Most regulations on business actually punish said business before the fact!

I'm not saying the drug regulations are perfect, they aren't. But just because they have some problems doesn't mean the solution is to scrap them entirely. That would be like saying the problem with Enron is the damn government financial regulations, they should be able to cook their books if they want to.

Interesting that the support for drug regulation is the problems in a non-drug concern!
If there are problems in the "system of safety" than the "system of safety" needs to be overhauled. Not added to!
Kind of like the failed health bills in Congress. The President's solution? Add to the bill, make it larger and more complicated!

Your father born in 1901 may have called them coffin nails, but did he call them that with full intent in 1921? My great grandmother was born at a similar time period, and had all sorts of bad things to say about cigarettes later in life. The fact is in the 1920's and 1930's she smoked, and didn't know a thing about the bad effects of cigarettes. That information was not publicly available until much later. Just because someone who was around in 1920 or 1930 says something in 1960 or 1970 about a product doesn't mean they felt that way in 1920 and 1930.

Can't accept that rationale. With out a serious research effort it is hard to prove, but the term "coffin nails" for cigarettes as synonymous. There is evidence that prior to "coffin nail" they were known as "coffin tacks" a term in use in the 19th century.