The
latest target for federal regulation is medical laboratory testing. The FDA sees lab developed tests as the Wild
West. This situation requires the FDA to
be in charge of evaluating medical lab tests for both safety and
effectiveness. Industry objections are
met with liberal arguments that if the FDA does not regulate medical lab test,
we might as well get rid of municipal health departments.
Some
VA patients see government controlled medicine as a vast Stalinist gulag that
can kill them with delays. Why do liberals always assume that government
is actually going to help? Bureaucrats don't become saints in employee
orientation. They stay just as self-interested as they were before they
became civil service employees.
It
amazes me that government is always looking for more responsibilities to take
on, especially given their poor record at accomplishing most of the things they
are already responsible for. Perhaps we should have a moratorium on
expanding government responsibility until all of the fraud and abuse everybody
talks about is reduced by a measurable amount.
My
argument is that we have gone past the point of diminishing returns with
governmental regulation at the federal level. I do not advocate dismantling
the FDA, merely stopping its growth.
There
is a difference between snake oil purchased by individuals who can barely read
and lab tests purchased by doctors for their patients. Doctors are
government licensed educated consumers who should be allowed to make decisions
based on their own education and experience. Since liberals want a
change, they have the burden of proof. They need to show some evidence
that doctors are not qualified to judge lab tests and that large numbers of lab
tests are misused with a huge casualty rate which is not controlled by personal
injury lawsuits. Or liberals can pretend "The Jungle" was
written recently about current events, instead of in 1906.