Sunday, February 15, 2015

The FDA is a bottleneck on technological advancement

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This chip right here, could save lives in the emergency room. But we still have to wait months-years, for it to be approved by the FDA.


Another very recent example is the recent petition made by Nick Grillo, a person who was been diagnosed with ALS.


In this petition which you can view and i urge you to sign here he mentions that there is a drug called GM6. This drug has the potential to extend his and other peoples lives who have been diagnosed with this debilitating disease. It is not a cure, but it could at least extend their lives long enough for a cure to be found.


Yet the drug is still awaiting time consuming approval, it will likely take 3 years before patients will have access to this drug. Yet most people with ALS are only given 2-5 years to live. This means that most people currently living with ALS wont be around to see it reach the market.


This is unacceptable, and a clear example where the FDA does absolutely more harm than good, as well many others.


The FDA is one of many government entities acting as a bottleneck on technological progress. Soon technology will advance faster than they can keep up.


The FDA needs to be done away with if we wish to experience the beneficial effects of technology as soon as they are made.


This is not 1920, we do not need some vague entity making decisions anymore. We have advanced telecommunications technology. We can research the information ourselves, and can make knowledgeable decisions for ourselves.


All drugs and procedures have pros and cons, and it should be up to you to weigh those pros and cons.


The FDA, or atleast their power, needs to be removed. 


This is only one example of many where technological advancement is stifled by government intervention.


The Google car is another example, held back not by the FDA, but nonetheless other government entities.


Even though the car drives better than any human, can see in all directions, all at the same time. Does not get drunk, or distracted, it still faces inevitable, but time consuming approval.


Ray Kurzweil, a truly amazing individual who is director of engineering at Google. Has made many predictions about the future of technology, the far majority of them correct. The problem is, he predicted that we would have driverless cars on the road by 2009. He was wrong. But the interesting and rather worrying fact is that he was not wrong due to the lack of technology, but due to the inefficiency of government. Due to this his prediction was off by, I believe 4-5 years. If you've ever read his predictions, which you can read here. You would realize that 4-5 years, is a very long time.


He made another prediction that by 2019 computers will do most of the driving, and humans will be prohibited from driving on highways unassisted. From this perspective, i am sure that we all can agree, this prediction will be false as well. But again not due to technology, but the inefficiency of government.

For me and my fellow Transhumanist, i am sure this is very worrying, and that we can all agree that something, whatever it is, needs to be done.