The Freedom Bulletin

I never really thought the FDA should be abolished. The Durham-Humphrey Amendment for sure, but I wasn’t so sure about the FDA in its entirety. Now I think I may have changed my mind. The FDA looks like it’s really going too far this time. A federal advisory panel has voted to ban the painkillers Vicodin and Percocet, as well as banning Tylenol in sizes larger than 325 mg.

The FDA is not required to follow the advice of the panel, but it usually does. In this case, I really hope it doesn’t. There is absolutely no reason to ban these medicines.

The purpose of the FDA is to protect people from fraudulent businesses, not to protect people from themselves. Claiming a drug is perfectly safe when it isn’t, or claiming a drug works when it doesn’t, those things should be banned by the government. But making a drug that has some risks, which are clearly explained on the package, should not be banned by the government. The FDA should ban drug makers from lying to customers. It shouldn’t ban people from obtaining the drugs that they want. It is each person’s right to evaluate the risks of medicines and decide whether they want to take them. The FDA cannot tell people what tradeoffs between risks and benefits are acceptable and which aren’t.

This brilliant article says it better than I probably ever could, so here are two quotes from it:

The proper function of government is to protect individual rights and guard against fraud, not to restrict freedom of choice to protect people from their own ignorance. 

Regulation advocates may protest: “What about the guy who consumes a drug without reading the package insert, consulting a medical professional, or looking at consumer websites or reference books? Shouldn’t he be protected?” In short, no. Forcing all consumers to live by rules that cater to the least responsible individuals imposes huge costs on everyone else and ultimately fails to protect even the willfully ignorant.

Additionally, banning Vicodin, Percocet, and 500 mg Tylenol would harm many innocent people. These medicines are all very effective at treating pain. Vicodin is prescribed over 100 million times each year in the USA. Many of these people probably need it to treat chronic pain, or temporary pain caused by surgery. There don’t seem to be any good alternatives to the medicines that the FDA’s advisory panel wants to ban. 500 mg Tylenol is useful to people who need a higher dose to treat their pain, and Vicodin and Percocet are the only way for many people to avoid constant, agonizing pain. It seems like a very reasonable decision to risk liver damage in order to be free from pain and able to enjoy life. Yet the FDA might take that option away from people and condemn them to lives of misery.

Not for nothing, but think about the fact that the FDA apparently has no problem with Viagra, Levitra, or Cialis, but might ban Vicodin and Percocet. What does that say about the FDA’s values? Apparently they think it’s more important to have satisfying sex than to be free from debilitating pain. How ridiculous.

If the FDA followed the panel’s recommendations, it would not only be taking away people’s rights and treating us like we don’t know what’s best for ourselves, but it would inflict pain and suffering on millions of innocent people. The government should not have the ability to do that, and that’s why I now think the FDA should be abolished.

Danny Hauser, a 13-year-old boy in Minnesota, has been ordered by a judge to receive chemotherapy despite his and his parents’ religious beliefs. The Hauser family belong to a religious organization called the Nemenhah Band and have elected to use natural remedies instead of traditional cancer treatments. Although a doctor said that Danny has a 90% chance of survival with chemotherapy and only a 5% chance without, the family says the herbs and vitamins are working.

I believe that the government is overstepping its authority in this case.

Daniel said in an affidavit, “I claim this, as my right, that no one: No government, No big Brother, No Tribe, No other human being may interfere with my Spiritual Path and my consciousness.”

His lawyer, Calvin Johnson, said “The path advocated by the State is one of torture and criminal action.”

I agree with them! If Danny had wanted to receive chemotherapy and his parents wouldn’t let him, then I would agree with the ruling in this case. But he doesn’t, and the government should not force him to undergo painful medical treatments that he doesn’t want.

An attorney for Daniel’s court-appointed guardian said his parents are “medically neglecting” him. But letting someone do what they want to do should never be considered neglect. I don’t believe that parents have the right to decide what medical treatments a child gets; I think that the child has the right to decide. A 13-year-old is old enough to make his own decisions, and neither parents nor the government should say that he doesn’t know what is best for himself merely because they disagree with his decision.

Even if the doctors are right that Daniel would die without chemotherapy, it’s not right for the court to force treatment on him. The government should never be able to force anyone to undergo any medical procedure that they do not want.

The Supreme Court is going to hear the case of a 13-year-old girl who was strip searched by her school because of a false accusation that she had aspirin. Savana Redding and her parents sued the school and the assistant principal for ordering her to be strip searched after another student accused her of possessing prescription-strength ibuprofen. She and her parents called the search humiliating and unconstitutional, and who can blame them?

The school’s actions are wrong on so many levels.

• First, it is wrong for a school to ban students from possessing or taking medication. People of all ages have a right to decide what medicines they want to take and to take those medicines whenever and wherever they want. A teenager is plenty old enough to make her own decisions about medicine.
• Second, the school had no warrant for the search. The Fourth Amendment forbids all searches for which there is no warrant. The Supreme Court ruled in 1985 that this protection applies to students, even though such a thing shouldn’t be necessary, since there is nothing in the Constitution that would suggest that students are exempt from the Bill of Rights.
• Third, I really don’t think strip searches should ever be legal, even if there is a warrant. Nothing can justify that kind of humiliation.
• Fourth, Savana didn’t even have the pills that the school had unjustly banned! I think that if you cause another person any kind of pain, inconvenience, or humiliation in order to search for something, and it turns out the person didn’t have the thing you were searching for, you should have to pay restitution to the victim. A strip search is humiliating; therefore it is punishment. Therefore, the school punished Savana even though she did nothing wrong. This is clearly unjust, and the school should have to undo the punishment by paying her a large sum of money.

All in all, the assistant principal and school committed a grievous wrong and flouted the Constitution. They should be punished severely.

Last year the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Savana’s favor, but the school appealed to the Supreme Court, saying that the ruling “would create enormous confusion for school officials in trying to determine when and how searches may now properly be conducted.” Um, how about no warrant, no search? What’s confusing about that?

The Supreme Court will hear the case in April.