How Your Government "Protects" You

There was segment on this on Stossel (Fox Business Channel) last night. It was about an experimental implant for a degenerative eye disease that has shown great promise in helping some bind people see.

The doctor who created the implant has already spent 7 years and $50 million conducting FDA trials which have demonstrated that the implant works. Now the FDA wants more – another $100 million and trials that will last another 3 years.

There are too few customers for the treatment to warrant spending another $100 million on trials. So, investors won't fund the effort. The doctor is going to stop pursuing it.

A potential patient, Stephen Lonegan, was on the show who has an eye disease that could be helped by the implant. He said he wants the treatment and will take whatever risk is involved. Some FDA bureaucrat said no. They said that their restrictions are for his own safety. Stephen said: "There's nothing safe about going blind. I don't want to be made safe by the FDA. I want it to be up to me to make the decision myself."

So this poor guy is going to go blind as a result of the decision of some mindless government bureaucrat following the rules of some impersonal, uncaring government bureaucracy.

In the meantime, all we heard from the Democrats at yesterday's so-called healthcare summit is how evil insurance companies are forcing little old ladies to do things like use their dead friend's false teeth (seriously, this was a topic of discussion).

Joseph de Maistre once said that "every nation has the government it deserves". Well, here it is...