Tag: libertarian

MAHA vs. the FDA: Dredging up old anti-regulation revisionist history

Recently, I've noticed articles from outlets aligned with MAHA calling for the elimination of the FDA. It's all recycled "health freedom" revisionist history and ahistorical nonsense.

/ May 4, 2026

The tendentious libertarianism of the Great Barrington Declaration

Libertarian authors of the Great Barrington Declaration have branched out into criticisms of NIAID director Dr. Anthony Fauci. In keeping with their past activities, their criticisms are inaccurate and misleading.

/ January 22, 2022

Donald Trump and Peter Thiel vs. the FDA: Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Donald Trump's three most likely picks for FDA Commissioner all favor loosening drug approval standards. Two are cronies of Peter Thiel, of which one believes that the FDA shouldn't require evidence of efficacy, only safety, and the other believes that a "Yelp for drugs" would do a better job than the FDA. The third candidate is a bona fide, honest-to-goodness pharma shill....

/ January 16, 2017

Matt Ridley’s not-so-mythical “myth” of basic science

I’m a clinician, but I’m actually also a translational scientist. It’s not uncommon for those of us in medicine involved in some combination of basic and clinical research to argue about exactly what that means. The idea is translational science is supposed to be the process of “translating” basic science discoveries in the laboratory into medicine, be it in the form of...

/ November 1, 2015