The uselessness of the FDA

What happens to the gas stations that sell the exploding gas or the grocers and restaurants that sell the poison meat? They go out of business. They'd go out of business twice if they could. Once when they got sued into oblivion and once when they lose so many customers they can't cover their costs. In fact, these consequences are so predictable that there is no sane businessman who would attempt to provide such products. It's telling that the only markets where consistently dangerous and unpredictable products are continually available are black markets, where government literally restricts competition and supply by outright bans and denies access to the courts.

Federal "meat inspections" are a complete joke. There are a handful of "inspectors" who make visual inspections on a nearly infinitesimal fraction of the food supply. The problem is, the things that make you sick cannot be seen. The reason that meat and other products is safe is the same reason they are inexpensive and plentiful: market competition. Government interference with market competition makes products less plentiful, more expensive, and less safe.

The FDA serves several purposes, but none of them are "consumer protection." First, it becomes almost a marketting agency for the industries it purports to regulate. Second, it serves as a protectionist barrier to entry and competition. Large companies lobby heavily for "strict consumer protections" that are actually regulatory burdens that are easily born by large companies but cannot be born by smaller companies. This either forces them out of the market or prevents them from entering in the first place. Thus consumers get hit with a triple whammy. They lose the benefits of competition, have to pay for the regulatory burden in the price of the food, and have to pay for the regulatory bureaucracy through taxes.