We’re told government protects us, but protectors quickly become bullies.

Take the Food and Drug Administration. It seems like the most helpful part of government: It supervises testing to make sure greedy drug companies don’t sell us dangerous stuff.


The FDA didn’t discover the problems with thalidomide. It was just slow. The drug application was stuck in the FDA’s bureaucracy. But being slow prevented birth defects in America.

It taught politicians and bureaucracy that slower is better.

Then the FDA grew, like a tumor.


What do Americans lose when regulators say “no”?

Usually, we never find out. We don’t know what vaccines or painkillers are never developed because regulation discouraged companies from trying something new.

But here’s one example where we do know what we lost:

Uterine prolapse is a common and nasty complication of childbearing. It causes urinary incontinence and terminates most couples’ sex lives. Complicated surgery and clumsy devices didn’t offer much help until device companies developed implants that often did.

However, since biology is unpredictable, some implants fail. In 2011, the FDA abruptly demanded “more studies.”

The bullies’ mandate unleashed a hornets’ nest of tort lawyers. They advertised, “Did your device fail? Call, and we will get you money!” They soon piled up so many suits that device manufacturers’ insurers canceled liability coverage. Device companies then withdrew devices from the market.

So now women suffering from uterine prolapse have fewer options. This is a price of bureaucratic “caution.”


Innovators don’t dare make a move without saying, “Regulator, may I please?”

In rare cases, when new devices are approved, there is a new obstacle: complex marketing restrictions. Say something about your product that the government doesn’t like, and you may be fined. The Office of the Inspector General and federal and state prosecutors troll for rule violations, then sue and fine.



We need some government force. The worst places in the world are countries that don’t have rule of law. Then people are afraid to build factories because mobs may steal what they make, or a dictator may take the whole factory. No one builds, so everyone stays poor.

It’s good America has rule of law. It’s good we have a military to defend us from foreign attacks, police that keep the peace, courts that ensure contracts are honored, environmental rules that punish polluters.



Like frightened kids in elementary school, we learn to accept this, to think it’s natural. But it’s not right that government forbids people in pain to make their own choices about what might help them.

Voluntary is better than force. Free is better than coerced. We’re better off when government is small and people are left to do as they please, unbullied.

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John Stossel

John Stossel
