Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Oh, Oh Dear. A Libertarian to Regulate Public Safety. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?



A pretty nerve-wracking report from Scientific American concerning a guy Trump is eyeing to run the Food & Drug Administration. Brace yourself, especially if you're an American.


President-elect Donald Trump is weighing naming as Food and Drug Administration commissioner a staunch libertarian who has called for eliminating the agency’s mandate to determine whether new medicines are effective before approving them for sale.

“Let people start using them, at their own risk,” the candidate, Jim O’Neill, said in a 2014 speech to a biotech group.

O’Neill, has also called for paying organ donors and setting up libertarian societies at sea—and has said he was surprised to discover that FDA regulators actually enjoy science and like working to fight disease.


...Peter Thiel, the billionaire Trump donor who is helping shape the new administration, is pushing for the FDA appointment for O’Neill, his managing director at Mithril Capital Management.

Trump’s focus on O’Neill was first reported Wednesday morning by Bloomberg.

O’Neill would be an unusual choice. He is not a physician, and lacks the strong science background that nearly all former commissioners have had in recent years.

...O’Neill has proposed that the FDA only require companies to prove drugs are safe before they are sold – not that they actually work.

O’Neill has also said that organ donors should be allowed to be paid. “There are plenty of healthy spare kidneys walking around, unused,” he said in a speech at a 2009 Seasteading conference.


And if that's not enough to unnerve ordinary Americans, this should do the trick:



6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Trump has his work cut out for him if he's supposed to do a lousier job on healthcare reform than Obomba.

(Wonder how many millions the healthcare industry will rain down on Obama in speaking fees? Given the healthcare industry wastes more than the military industrial complex spends, I'm guessing quite a few. Certainly the MIC has a lotta gratitude to express towards their favorite Nobel Peace Prize laureate in units of $250k speeches. Real tasty!)

Anonymous said...

I hope you are an American posting about failures within the USA healthcare system?
Trump could possibly cut healthcare to 30 million that Obama gave it to.
A wonderful start; don't you think?

Who gives a shit how much Obama gets on the speaking circuit!
Who complained about GW Bush giving talks at hundreds of thousands $$ a pop telling like minded millionaires how to avoid , not just reduce, paying taxes!!

TB

Anonymous said...

"Who gives a shit how much Obama gets on the speaking circuit!"

Responsible citizens opposed to pay-for-play corruption in politics and people who would rather be represented in government than corporations.

Lotta people complained about Bush Jr. Then came along Obama promising change delivering nothing. Then came along Hillary promising business as usual.

At least with Trump we get some kind of change. Or so the corporate 'fake news' media tells us!

Ben Burd said...

Mound it will soonn be obvious to all that trump is out to collapse Modern America as we have known it for the past fifty years, to quote Robert Reich:
" Trump will be nominating the most radical right-wing cabinet in American history -- including an EPA administrator who doesn't believe in regulating the environment, an Attorney General who doesn't believe in the Voting Rights Act, a Secretary of Education who doesn't believe in public education, a Secretary of Housing and Urban Development who doesn't believe in the Fair Housing Act, and a Secretary of Health and Human Services who doesn't believe in public health insurance.

And then there's Trump himself, who doesn't believe in anything except himself."


Can't wait to see the rest of the appointments.

The Mound of Sound said...

Ben I fear that Robert Reich's take could be accurate. He has a greatly inflated notion of his country's strengths and almost no concept of its points of fragility.

Perhaps Trump will be America's "nation state stress test." The country might overdose on free market fundamentalism but, should that happen, the aftermath could be very ugly.

Anonymous said...

Would that be the reason Putin held his breath waiting for Trump to win? Indeed, this could be very hideous and extremely damaging to Canada.