Kick The Can (Part 89,493)

Belmont Club » Bugs vs Man or Man vs Man?: "Dr. David Shlaes, MD who blogs on the subject, recently wrote an open letter to Secretary of HHS Kathleen Sibelius. In it he concluded:

I am at a loss to explain the FDA’s lurch into Neverland as far as antibiotics are concerned. I can only assume that it is partly a response to political pressure to further distance themselves from industry and to increase their standards for both efficacy and safety. But I consider that a lack of new antibiotics is also a serious safety issue – a fact that the FDA and their congressional critics appear to be ignoring.

What Dr. Shlaes neglected to note is that a major infectious crisis caused by the lack of antibiotics has not yet broken out in the First World. So far the only people who have been condemned by a lack of treatment are poor people in the Third World. Given a choice between preparing for a future crisis and succumbing to present-day political pressure, politicians will kick the can down the road every time."

RTWT. Dead Indians? And soon to be dead Americans? Who cares when there's a re-election to be tended to? Maybe they'll mostly turn out to be stupid Republicans after all...