Decisions to approve or ban medications are difficult because they're about probabilities, and whichever decision you make, there is an expected body count attached to it.
The "but Thalidomide!" argument only considers one side: If you approve a medication that ends up hurting/killing people. That is bad, and everybody understands that.
The other side is that if you delay the approval of a life saving drug, that also kills a lot of people who die while you wait. That is bad, and very few understand that.
The same people who died before, keep dying today. This does not make news, no one has to resign, and as a result regulators become very prone to err on the side on delaying approvals.
How many Americans have died from this bias since Thalidomide is unknowable, but it's definitely in 6 figures, maybe more.
Decisions to approve or ban medications are difficult because they're about probabilities, and whichever decision you make, there is an expected body count attached to it.
The "but Thalidomide!" argument only considers one side: If you approve a medication that ends up hurting/killing people. That is bad, and everybody understands that.
The other side is that if you delay the approval of a life saving drug, that also kills a lot of people who die while you wait. That is bad, and very few understand that.
The same people who died before, keep dying today. This does not make news, no one has to resign, and as a result regulators become very prone to err on the side on delaying approvals.
How many Americans have died from this bias since Thalidomide is unknowable, but it's definitely in 6 figures, maybe more.