Later, someone else brought up about the new food safety bill that passed today and he thought it was a good thing because of the salmonella and e-coli breakouts in peanut butter and cilantro and whatever. The bill gives the FDA more power over food inspections. A classmate got REALLY upset and ranted about the FDA doing more harm than it's ever done good, citing an example of the FDA raiding a raw food coop in California
and you know, people have died waiting for drug trials. She then essentially said I was calling the Tea Party people crazy and that they just want smaller government and government is so bad, and then quoted Glen Beck to support her argument. - blink*
Do people really believe that the FDA is bad? I'm not very interested in the topic outside of appreciating that they do recall drugs that kill you or make you fly airplanes into houses on suicide missions. In general, it feels like a "too little too late" kind of agency.
The prof was very very diplomatic in calming the ruffled feathers.
Ok, sorry for the MJ rant. I'll just drop it as it isn't pertinent to your post. I'm honestly sorry for that, even if I really do hate them.
Appeal to authority is always a logical fallacy, regardless of whether it is Glenn Beck, Noam Chomsky, the Cookie Monster, or whoever else. Your classmate made a bad argument worse (Died waiting for drug trials? Ridiculous, and comparable to people claiming if only GWB weren't President, Michael J. Fox would be cured).
I, for one, am thankful that the FDA exists. I'm glad I have clean water and safe food. I can go through life and feel satisfied, without having ever eaten unpasteurized Brie. That's an agency I like in general.
A Tea Partier wrote an analysis of Agenda 21, and came up with some reasons they find it objectionable. I talk with Tea Party types every day, unlike their critics, and this is the first time I've even heard of this so called issue. The part of MJ's article I find suspicious is the idea that it constitutes some kind of "threat". Against what?
It is reminiscent of another bullshit "threat" Mother Jones wrote about earlier this year - the idea that soldiers are lining up to wage war against the Obama administration.
The cover had a mean-looking soldier, with AGE OF TREASON next to him. He's not alone! Watch out! But what did the STORY say? It was about the Oath Keepers, another thing MJ said was a "big deal" among people they don't understand or communicate with. The story was meant to scare gullible progressives into thinking that there was violence afoot, and the cover was meant to blur the distinction between regular American soldiers and the Oath Keepers.
Not only were they dead wrong on the threat and the importance of Oath Keepers to hard core conservatives, the only violence from soldiers was at Fort Hood, the kind of violence Mother Jones types want to pretend isn't a threat.
So, yes. I advise you guys take anything Mother Jones says about people they hate with two giant, heaping spoonfuls of salt.
Um... sure (e:jason), here's what the Tea Party is saying: :::link::: or :::link:::
(e:jbeatty) - I thought her argument was stuipd, too. And you're right... I don't think I really meant that the FDA is too little, too late. Thanks for your input.
I would take anything Mother Jones says about Tea Party members with giant scoops full of salt.
What bothers me about people who want smaller government at all costs is the elimination of agencies like the FDA. I can't comment on the food inspection side of things because I have no familiarity on the subject. I am however a drug manufacturer. I'm regulated on a daily basis by the USP and FDA on how I compound drugs. I don't see them as a "too little too late" sort of agency. They are very proactive about making sure the drugs you get are safe and efficacious. I have drugs fail quality control on a monthly basis. Believe me it would be much more cost effective to release a drug that didn't meet strict guidelines than it would be to re-synthesize them. Your classmates argument that "people have died waiting for drug trials" is quite frankly stupid. Drug trials take a long time for a reason. The last thing anyone wants to see happen is another thalidomide being approved.
I don't think the FDA is bad, in general. It has several merits as a regulating authority. (Seriously, raw milk enthusiasts need to get most of their facts straight and look at food poisoning statistics in less fortunate countries around the world before crying blue murder.)
However, the FDA is only as good as the people who run its offices. If they are non-scientifically inclined, then decisions that pass through them are bound to be stilted and ridiculous. What it probably needs is a rotating non-biased external scientific advisory expert body/panel that assesses key issues before major decisions are set in motion.