I nedenstående – som er tyvstjålet fra marginalrevolution.com – illustrerer Alex Tabarrok hvor problematisk det er, når man bruger argumenter a’la “folk kan ikke håndtere informationen, så derfor må vi regulere det”.
Argumentet bliver også tit brugt i Danmark. Både i sammenhæng med COVID-19-pandemien, kviktests og “falsk tryghed”. Men vi ser det også på mange andre felter. Forleden brugte både Forældrenes Landorganisation og pædagogernes fagforbund samme type argumenter imod, at forældre vurderede deres børns institutioner på en slags Trustpilot for børnehaver og vuggestuer. Argumentet er i begge tilfælde, at brugerne ikke magter at fortolke information rigtigt (hvad enten det er resultatet af en kviktest eller vurderingen af en institution), og derfor ender de med at gøre skade på sig selv eller deres børn. Jeg har endnu til gode at se denne tese dokumenteret (selvom jeg ikke vil afvise, at der er særtilfælde, hvor det rent faktisk kan ske).
Nedenfor er hvad Tabarrok siger om det. Du kan se hele samtalen “Lessons from the pandemic: How the FDA (among others) failed us” her.
Brink Lindsey: …it’s on the rapid testing that we had inexplicable delays. Rapid tests, home tests were ubiquitous in Europe and Asia months before they were in the United States. What was going on?
Alex Tabarrok: So I think it’s not actually inexplicable because the FDA has a long, long history of just hating people testing themselves. So the FDA was against pregnancy tests, they didn’t like that, they said women they need to consult with a doctor, only the physician can do the test because literally women could become hysterical if they were pregnant or if they weren’t pregnant, this was a safety issue. There was no question that the test itself was safe or worked. Instead what the FDA said, “We can regulate this because the user using it, this could create safety issues because they could commit suicide or they could do something crazy.” So they totally expanded the meaning of safety from is the test safe to can somebody be trusted to use a pregnancy test?
Then we had exactly the same thing with AIDS testing. So we delayed personal at-home tests for AIDS for literally 25 years. 25 years these tests were unavailable because the FDA again said, “Well, they’re dangerous.” And why are they dangerous? “Well, we don’t know what people will do with this knowledge about their own bodies.” Now, of course, you can get an HIV test from Amazon and the world hasn’t collapsed. They did the same thing with genetic tests from companies like 23andMe. So I said, “Our bodies ourselves, our DNA ourselves.” That people have a right to know about the functioning of their own bodies. This to me is a very clear violation of the Constitutions on multiple respects. It just stuns me, it just stuns me that anybody could think that you don’t have a right to know, we’re going to prevent you from learning something about the operation of your own body.
Again, the issue here was never does the test work. In fact, the labs which produce these tests, those labs are regulated outside of the FDA. So whether the test actually works, whether yes, it identifies this gene, all issues of that nature, what is the sensitivity and the specificity, are the tests produced in a proper laboratory, I don’t have a lot of problem with that because that’s all something which the consumers themselves would want. What I do have a problem with is then the FDA saying, “No, you can’t have access to this test because we don’t know what you’re going to do about it, what you’re going to think about it.” And that to me is outrageous.
Det vi ser med FDA er en sundhedsregulering der er korrumperet. FDA varetager ikke patienternes behov, men medicinalindustriens og egne interesser. Mon det er fordi sundhedsreguleringen er totalt topstyret. Der er ingen konkurrence, som man ville have hvis der var mange indbyrdes konkurrerende “FDA’er” som de enkelte sundhedsklinikker kunne vælge mellem.
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Der er mange ting, hvor USA er vanskeligt at forstå. Et af dem er, den udbredte adgang til og liberale holdning til at bære dem i det offentlige rum. Et andet meget uforståeligt forhold er, hvordan USA kan bringe befolkningen ud i et kollosalt misbrug af opoider. FDA er efter min mening medskyldig i denne ulykke.
Så tak til Jonas Herby – vores egne myndigheder og institutioner fortjener, at få revet sløret væk fra øjnene.
Våben handler det første om – sorry. Desværre og ulykkeligvis meget aktuelt denne morgen (igen)