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Just one, this time, out in email (edited for even more sting).
Oh, how the left inspires. If only I could be just an "ordinary American." To be a victim in the eyes of the left; to be dependent upon them to set me in "a much better place" . . . how I long for such "splendor."
And yet, each and every year, the average human life expectancy increases. Talk about biting the hand that feeds. Of course, that's nothing new for the lefties.
It requires hundreds of millions of dollars of investment, and an average of seven years, to take a drug to market. Most proposed new drugs never even make it to market, so those total losses must be factored in as well.
A state of double jeopardy now exists, in a sense. We make the drug companies jump through every conceivable hoop at great expense over years and years, imposed by the FDA. Then, when a drug finally gets the FDA stamp of approval, and later, if problems arise that even the FDA could not foresee over years of testing at a cost of tens of millions of dollars, people sue and attempt to win still more tens of millions of dollars in punitive damages.
I have no essential argument with imposing the costs of something going wrong on the drug companies. After all, someone has to take responsibility. But punitive damages are to punish for egregious carelessness and wrongdoing. It's unfair to impose the gauntlet we have to get a drug through, and then after all of it, to punish them for "not being prudent enough," should an adverse risk be detected.
There is no such thing as a risk free drug. There never has been, and likely never will be. Moreover, even with the best possible risk-management we can muster, problems will arise from time-to-time. It's the nature of our existence.
With regard to the performance of the drug companies, on the whole, we should be saluting, even genuflecting.
I think that perhaps the worst sin in the world has to be that of envy.
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