A mosquito in charge of the blood supply

What kind of person do you want running the Food and Drug Administration? A scientist who has a good understanding of food and drug safety and a commitment to ensure both for the citizenry.

Oops! Joke’s on you! Trump wants the other kind – the kind who thinks the citizenry should take care of itself and not expect some government bureaucrat to do it, god damn it.

President-elect Donald Trump is weighing naming as Food and Drug Administration commissioner a staunch libertarian who has called for eliminating the agency’s mandate to determine whether new medicines are effective before approving them for sale.

Sure. Just throw them out there and see what happens.

“Let people start using them, at their own risk,” the candidate, Jim O’Neill, said in a 2014 speech to a biotech group.

O’Neill has also called for paying organ donors and setting up libertarian societies at sea—and has said he was surprised to discover that FDA regulators actually enjoy science and like working to fight disease.

A source close to the Trump transition team told STAT that Peter Thiel, the billionaire Trump donor who is helping shape the new administration, is pushing for the FDA appointment for O’Neill, his managing director at Mithril Capital Management.

Oh well, it’s only food and medicine.

2 Responses to “A mosquito in charge of the blood supply”