FDA (U.S. Food & Drug Administration)

The FDA is seen by many as a safe and legitimate arbiter of the safety and quality of our food supply - as well as medical treatments available to the general public.  

For others, however, the FDA has come to be so heavily influenced by corporate interests that it no longer puts the public well-being first (even when it thinks it does). When the FDA makes decisions on treatment outcomes for psychiatric drugs, for instance, it has often yielded to the influence of corporate advisory committees.

The general public criticizes the FDA for reducing American health in two different ways. Some see the FDA as causing more deaths than it prevents due to unreasonable delays and restrictions in approvals. Otherssee the FDA as cooperating too much with business - with a need to better represent American interests as an independent watchdog organization.

QUESTIONS TO PLAY WITH:

-Is the FDA doing a good job? If it isn’t, how would you do its job better? If it is doing a good job, how would you defend it to people who think it is failing?

-What do people not know about the FDA that they should know?

-If we lived in a world in which the FDA was not necessary, what would that world look like?