FDA’s Death Toll, Online Gambling and Dangerous Treaties
The Food and Drug Administration restricts production of an approved drug to treat a degenerative and often fatal muscle disorder.
Online gambling operators await action from Congress clarifying the legality of certain financial transactions.
The White House signals support for a new international treaty to restrict carbon emissions.
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1. HEALTH
The Food and Drug Administration restricts production of an approved drug to treat a degenerative and often fatal muscle disorder.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Gregory Conko on how the FDA’s deadly over-caution already costs lives:
“…the agency’s seven-year delay in approving beta blockers in 1981 for the prevention of second heart attacks cost an estimated 45,000 to 70,000 lives. And its 1988 ban on advertising aspirin to the general public to prevent a first heart attack likely caused tens of thousands of deaths each year that the ban was in effect. Centralized government overregulation takes away decisions that patients and their physicians are best suited to make for themselves. As economist Dr. Robert Higgs notes, forcing people at gunpoint to do ‘what’s best for them’ is the most reprehensible form of paternalism.”
2. LEGAL
Online gambling operators await action from Congress clarifying the legality of certain financial transactions.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Policy Analyst Michelle Minton on why online gambling isn’t like the days of the Wild West:
“Online gambling faces challenges common to any growing industry. Gambling online does, in many cases, imply unique threats and risks that do not apply in the ‘real’ world—including computer viruses and adware. But online gambling is not illegal, does not take place in a lawless ‘Wild West’ setting, and does not provide a particularly fertile ground for cheating. Those who gamble online need to be careful just as those who gamble in the real world need to be. The market and rating agencies do an increasingly effective job of ensuring consumer safety.”
3. INTERNATIONAL
The White House signals support for a new international treaty to restrict carbon emissions.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Iain Murray on the threats to the nation’s sovereignty from ill-considered treaties:
“It is therefore not too outlandish to suggest that some form of international body, set up to unify and harmonize the fluffy-sounding environmental treaties we seem all too willing to rush to sign in this new era of hope and change, could become America’s version of European Union. A few more treaties and it is possible to see permits for new power plants not being decided by governors, but by international bureaucrats. The environment is such a catch-all that it is possible to see responsibility for all sorts of areas of policy being transferred to this new organization: environment and energy obviously, increasing amounts of economic policy via mechanisms such as carbon taxes, agricultural and fisheries policy will be next. What about education, to ensure every child is aware of their responsibilities to the planet?”
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