How does one keep the following situation from happening? Company A has medical product, takes it for testing to Company X, offers N millions under the table to slant report on their new medical product. Heck, we’re already seeing problems with bias in outsourced testing.

Did the current government lead system stop Vioxx? What about Phen-fen?

Here’s a better explanation, because I see you are having a hard time grasping abstract principles. The first time that Company A’s product causes someone harm with a problem that should have been uncovered during the evaluation stage, Company X loses it’s credibility as an effective evaluator of the safety of new drugs; resulting in either Company X getting its act together and not slanting its results or, less business eventually causing Company X to go out of business.

How many other drugs do you think patients and doctors will trust when Company A and X say it is safe?

What amuses me most about Libertarians is their naive assumption that as soon as something moves from being done by the government to being done by the private sector, it automatically moves from being a Bad Thing to a Good Thing. Efficiency somehow magically improves 500 times, and that corruption somehow disappears.

What about your naive assumption that the government always knows best? No one said that corruption disappears. But, what happens is that once the government stops providing a service, there are more available funds for a private enterprise to provide that function. More money, means more competition which means more pressure on companies to do a good job, or lose ground to their competitors that are doing the job well.

I also note that very few die-hard libertarians are actual entrepreneurs.

Oh, and since I never actually played hockey, I should refrain from commenting on it? Since you believe in government AND you are an entrepreneur answer this question for me…

In all of your dealings with government employees, how many of those government employees would you hire to work for you? None. But, these are the same people you trust to implement all of those wonderful regulations you seek?

(Most of them turn out to be lower echelon coders stuck in the bowels of a corporation. The same people that absolutely scream and howl about How The Government Is Oppressing Them will have absolutely nothing against dress codes, drug testing, keyboard-stroke monitoring and video cameras in the hallways—-provided it’s their private employer doing it, because “it’s in the contract”.

You are absolutely right, that employee can choose to walk out the door anytime they get ready. And if they choose to complain and not actually do anything about it…well you know the definition of insanity…

Being a libertarian doesn’t mean being an entrepreneur, it means having the freedom and liberty to be whatever you want to be. Who told you that in order to be a “good libertarian” you have to be an entrepreneur?

(No wonder the answer to our soldiers in Iraq is “but you volunteered!”)

The last refuge of making a pointless point, an irrational misdirection in the midst of a productive conversation.

The mind-set of a nanny-statist who knows better than you what you need. I’m joining mid-stream, but you won’t miss much. The post deals with prescription drugs.Second, even professional pharmacists have a hard time keeping up with the huge number…

Yes, because it is in these “research companies” financial interests to in “slant” their research so companies keep using them. Because as long as the FDA says a drug is safe, it’s going to market with “FDA Approval”. So what motivation does a “research company” have to be impartial if no one cares what their final results are?

Actually I think it’s more complicated than that, in that the biases seem to be pretty subtle. They have to do with negative results being difficult to publish, trials being well designed but aimed at producing significance rather than improvements on best practices, and other issues that I think a lay audience would have a good deal of difficulty understanding. It’s not clear to me that taking government influence out of the picture would do much to improve the situation.

Meaning, it would not make sense for a company to release an unsafe drug because they would not make money and be sued by victims of its adverse effects.

Unless we implement tort reform, then they can just factor it into the cost of goods sold.

I do think, however, that there is value in not having a permanent prescription.

Don’t get me wrong, I agree. A new medication might become available that would better treat a patient’s symptoms. Some meds lose their efficacy over time. Some medications have very rare but serious side effects.

I was just trying to get a handle on the libertarian view point. Are all potential risks covered by Caveat Emptor?

So are you saying that if you ever receive a Louis Vuitton purse as a gift, you’d be happy to part with it? Can I call dibs?

Sure Krista, you’ll be the one I call, k? :)

Has it worked? Well, sorta…..there’s been a lot of complaints about a) the rating agencies parcel up the market (are acting in cahoots with each other, b) the companies that pay more are likely to get better ratings, and c) the rating system doesn’t accurately reflect the risk.

How does one keep the following situation from happening? Company A has medical product, takes it for testing to Company X, offers N millions under the table to slant report on their new medical product. Heck, we’re already seeing problems with bias in outsourced testing.

What amuses me most about Libertarians is their naive assumption that as soon as something moves from being done by the government to being done by the private sector, it automatically moves from being a Bad Thing to a Good Thing. Efficiency somehow magically improves 500 times, and that corruption somehow disappears.

(I also note that very few die-hard libertarians are actual entrepreneurs. Most of them turn out to be lower echelon coders stuck in the bowels of a corporation. The same people that absolutely scream and howl about How The Government Is Oppressing Them will have absolutely nothing against dress codes, drug testing, keyboard-stroke monitoring and video cameras in the hallways—-provided it’s their private employer doing it, because “it’s in the contract”. No wonder the answer to our soldiers in Iraq is “but you volunteered!”)

The demand for scientists would go up 10 fold…but so would the demand for lawyers; with the latter leading to a rise in psychiatrists as well.

The average person would have to spend about 80% of their day “rationally” weighing all the new choices and conflicting information. “Reading Press Releases” would become the fourth R in school. Since most people I know have a hard time deciding what shaving cream to buy, I’m not sure that we need all this increased information.

As a scientist I’d be happy about the new found importance, but worried that public perception of the field would devolve into “he said/she said” even more than it is now. Also it would encourage bad science by completely obliterating the difference between correlation and causation.

One is why companies like EvaluaTech aren’t already making a killing today.

Because regardless of what a lab might say, the FDA still has to give an okay, so why bother?

Is government regulation responsible for this situation?

Yes, because it is in these “research companies” financial interests to in “slant” their research so companies keep using them. Because as long as the FDA says a drug is safe, it’s going to market with “FDA Approval”. So what motivation does a “research company” have to be impartial if no one cares what their final results are?

In my example, it would be in the company’s financial interest to be impartial, because any evaluation company that was perceived as shady may not get favorable opinions from the medical community. Therefore, if a drug company wanted credibility, they wouldn’t use a company whose impartiality can be questioned. And any drug company that only used “questionable” evaluation labs, probably wouldn’t sell a lot of drug because of a lack of credibility.

grumpy realist Says:
1) “No taxes!”—> you’re either going to be paying taxes to the gov’t or protection money to the warlords. What’s your pick? Countries with warlords don’t usually have very advanced economies.

I remember one guy at LewRockewell.com saying he was much happier paying insurrance to the mob than paying taxes.

Just because the government doesn’t provide a service, doesn’t mean it goes away. In fact, once the government gets “out of the business” of something, it opens up the door for someone else to get “into the business”. And it also opens up competition, how many other “evaluation” labs would crop up if EvaluTech starts making a lot of money? then only the most impartial lab will survive, because any “crooked” labs to get narc’d on by impartial ones.

Just some thoughts. There will never be market anarchy, but you can see that there may be benefits of removing some government from the markets.

Yes, these are very reasonable thoughts, and in general I think that less government involvement in some areas would probably improve things. There are a couple of practical issues, though. One is why companies like EvaluaTech aren’t already making a killing today. From New Scientist in 2003, for example:

Research funded by drug companies is more likely to produce results that favour the sponsor’s product, reveals a new study.

Researchers analysed 30 previous reports examining pharmaceutical industry-backed research and found the conclusions of such research were four times more likely to be positive than research backed by other sponsors.

Is government regulation responsible for this situation? I think there are more obvious culprits. Another issue is that it strikes me that an ounce of regulation (properly applied) is worth a pound of litigation. Figuring out how and when to do it right is hard, of course.

Andrei: Neither political party will come close to endorsing anything close to libertarianism, because, by definition, they will not actively try and reduce their own power.

The answer is that when everyone gets to the point where it is actually a bad thing to have a D or R attached to their name when trying to get elected. You know, the free market. :-) It hasn’t got painful enough in the body politic for it yet.

Yes, in the long run a company producing a bad drug might be driven out of business, but in the short run someone running the company (with limited personal liability, of course) could make a killing so to speak.

Yes, this is true. But, this can happen with any product or service AND government regulation can’t guarantee that even with their “standards” an unsafe drug doesn’t make it to market (e.g. Vioxx). Also, using Vioxx as an example, once a drug makes it to the market in the current system, it is already assumed to be safe. The only body that has evaluated this is the government, not like the government hasn’t failed before. :-)

Most people assume that just because the government ceases to provide a particular service that the particular service in question will go away. Let’s give a libertarian, free market example of a new drug trying to come to the market:

Press Release: Drug Company X has announced that their drug Perfectosyn is ready for sale immediately in the US and the world.

Press Release (two days later): Drug Company Y, Drug Company X’s main competitor with their drug Utopias, says that Drug Company X is failing to mention that Perfectosyn is a habit forming narcotic medication, while Utopias is not.

Press Release (day after Drug Company Y’s release): The American Medical Association is recommending that it’s member physicians not prescribe the new drug Perfectosyn due to the lack of information regarding the possible addictive nature of the drug.

Press Release (from Drug Company X): Drug Company X is announcing that it is releasing the results of its internal testing as well as hiring the independent drug evaluation labs of EvaluTech to verify their claim that Perfectosyn is non-addictive.

Press Release (after testing): Drug Company X announces that EvaluTech has deemed Perfectosyn non-addictive.

Press Release: The American Medical Association has decided to remove their objection to the prescription of Perfectosyn due the independent EvaluTech and their own internal evaluations.

Press Release: Drug Company X files charges for slander against Drug Company Y for the false statements made about its drug Perfectosyn. It is seeking damages including missed sales, reimbursement of testing costs, legal fees, and other punitive damages.

Press Release (months later): In a crushing decision by a Federal Court today, Drug Company Y is ordered to pay 100 billion dollars in damages to Drug Company X for slanderous statements made about its new drug Perfectosyn. Drug Company Y not having that much in cash will have to liquidate its holdings to pay the judgment.

Just because the government doesn’t provide a service, doesn’t mean it goes away. In fact, once the government gets “out of the business” of something, it opens up the door for someone else to get “into the business”. And it also opens up competition, how many other “evaluation” labs would crop up if EvaluTech starts making a lot of money? then only the most impartial lab will survive, because any “crooked” labs to get narc’d on by impartial ones.

Just some thoughts. There will never be market anarchy, but you can see that there may be benefits of removing some government from the markets.

So are you saying that if you ever receive a Louis Vuitton purse as a gift, you’d be happy to part with it? Can I call dibs?

I only carry Gucci.

Oh, and RareSanity, the fallacies with “market anarchists” is pretty obvious

RareSanity wasn’t promoting market anarchism. He was defining it because often times in these sorts of discussions, people conflate market anarchists with middle of the road libertarians.