Straight up extortion.
Edit: I do not mean it cynically or as a joke. I think that is exactly what conservative position was for years. The only difference now is that it is not possible to euphemism away or plausible deniality away out of it.
The MAGA movement has completely purged all the conservatives from the Republican party.
They've increased the deficit by a trillion dollars, built an army of ICE agents and deployed them to terrorize people in cities around the country, added billions of dollars in import taxes, taken state ownership stakes in multiple companies.
They're closer to Stalin or Mao than to any conservative ideology of a small government that stays out of people's business.
How randomly they seem to be applied to makes me wonder if theres back room deals going on.
Was that data really “lousy”? (Referencing the REPL data?) Was it a trial design issue? (which he has very strong and unconventional opinions on) Is it the role of his position to overrule his specialist review teams ? (in the absence of any clear safety risks or malfeasance)
In general prescription drugs have massive downsides and they still got approved.
So you need a government agency or a private group doing the same functions while facing huge lawsuits and thus requiring the same or more data. Granted US doctors could use European etc guidelines, but that’s a different discussion.
Such lax rules are invariably exploited to death (literally!) by unscrupulous profit-seekers.
Even if you’re smarter than the average bear and “do your own research”, your relatives won’t all be of the same intellectual calibre and you’ll occasionally lose a loved one to a huckster selling mercury compounds as a cure all.
You’ll get mad and “demand something be done.”
That something looks like the FDA.
Sure, sometimes the FDA is slow to approve drugs that have science behind them. Or from other countries that proved efficacy and safety. But frankly people can already do whatever they want with regards to health. The wellness and alternative medicine industry is larger than the actual pharmaceutical industry. Your fears are unfounded.
https://www.takeda.com/newsroom/newsreleases/2025/takeda-ore...
Wikipedia says homeopathy market was 2.7B in 2007 and I'm too lazy to find new data. AFAIK there has not been issued a single fraud sentence against the manufacturers. That's with a half-functioning FDA that actually made some moves to stop this. Now how bad would it be with no regulation at all? Because, again, there is no doubt that homeopathy has overwhelmingly higher profit margin compared to actual drugs.
So no different than with the current FDA approvals?
Also, there is difference between individual dumb choice and market where bad actors are enabled and normal person have zero chance to distinguish them.
It would not be just dubm choices. It would be people in set up to fail situation.
It is also incredibly saddening to see great institutions of expertise be treated as playthings by the ignorant.
There's plenty to criticize of the org (as with almost all others) but the rank and file are doing good work to help try to keep us safe.
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-anno...
One (of many) issue is that this has no bearing on other regulatory regimes. So, sure, the FDA approves of the drug/device/thingy because the AI got lost and no one is checking what it's saying. But Canada's CFIA doesn't because they are still using real people or centaurs ( people + AI, but I'm not 100% sure so don't quote me on that ).
That makes it so that you can only sell the drug/device/thingy in the US and some other countries that blindly follow US FDA (mostly poorer nations with very small markets and a lack of legal recourse, they'll just turn to the EFSA/EMA).
Which fine, but that is not the bet that these large companies made about a decade ago when it came to whether or not this drug/device/thingy would be worth it to pursue. These big drugs need to pay off all the failed research with international sales. Same is somewhat true with devices (mostly internal these days). These big drug makers want stability. Profits are fine, but revenue is just as important as these pipelines are sooooo long and soooo fraught. The human body is just too variable.
The tariffs and all the monkey business with this admin is very much not good for the US when it comes to these large drug/device/thingy makers. Chaos is not good for business. They have all learned that Donny and his ilk (per the article here) do not keep their words when it comes to corruption. They do not stay bought, they are not stable.
We're already shedding jobs here in favor of moving to the EU. Yes, not India or China, but the Baltics mostly (inside Schengen zone). We lost 10 people with jobs opening up there (same day) just this last week. The EU is stable in the eyes of my very own bosses.
I don't care what your opinions are of the administration. This is crappy journalism. I'm even willing to entertain the notion that this is representative of a systematic staffing problem -- but not when the reporting is so obviously, viciously partisan.
I'm even willing to admit that water might be wet, but not when someone is standing in a swimming pool splashing it around.
Not "people" -- a single, unnamed, VC. It's right there in the article. Read it.
> Prasad was ousted
No, he wasn't. He voluntarily resigned pre-emptively after the WSJ editorials, then he was re-hired almost immediately. You are just misinformed. You'd know this if you read a better source.
I agree with your comment that my criticism is (and was) biased reporting.
Why? The cost of citation is very high, so you'd simply not report on valuable sentiment
Having a stance is not the same thing as bias and it's not the same thing as partisanship.
Let's be honest, since Ars has been bought by Condé Nast, it has progressively become something between Reddit and Gawkers.
And also, if you are democrat or democratic leaning, you are not allowed to criticize republican administration. Criticism, insults and such can flow only one way - from conservatives to democrats. Checkmate.
[1] E.g. government statistics, or public announcements by a university regarding their programs, in an article about what kind of programs that university offers. I.e. sources nobody disputed for those claims.
You have to be kidding me. A division director of FDA was extorting people mafia style, with links to a lawsuit with evidence and your first thoughts were: "she hurt me feefees with a article about inane culture war bullshit" and "how dare she display her twiter-clone account".
As always, https://www.jwz.org/ is right.
People like like to pretend their favorite side doesn't do as much bullshit, yet they do, even if it's more subtle or hidden.
What a waste of time. Complaining about the drama while creating it...