The FDA is an affront to medical freedom in the US. Like all regulatory agencies, it has formed a cartel with the businesses it was implemented to regulate. We are left with mainstream medical knowledge subject to lobbyists. The FDA pushes flawed studies as irrefutable science, dangerous drugs, and a diet not suited to humans.
Private, voluntary certification companies like Underwriters Laboratories have an incentive to be honest, because they will go out of business if discredited. Likewise, pharmaceutical companies need the certification of an outside party to gain and keep the trust of consumers. The FDA should not be that party. Unlike the UL, it is a government bureaucracy that does not need to maintain a good reputation to stay in power.
The Gates Foundation is trying to distribute antimalarial drugs to all the poor people in Africa. Too bad there is already a cure for malaria orders of magnitude cheaper: DDT. In epidemiology, you eradicate a disease by preventing its spread, not treating every infected individual. Malaria was already eliminated in places like Sicily by using DDT.
DDT does not thin eggshells of birds. It is not carcinogenic either. I can't tell whether Bill Gates is trying to accomplish anything or just spend lots of money on others out of penance. If the Gates Foundation wants to improve the world, they would have more money for useful charity if they just applied DDT in Africa.
In the sciences, we are now uniquely priviledged to sit side by side with the giants on whose shoulders we stand. -- Gerald Holton