Comment on "FDA is Considering Bending the Rules"

In this article posted on the blog entitled, Alien Government, the author outlines the consideration by the FDA of allowing the use of drugs to cure "non-official" causes. Representative Henry Waxman on the oppositional side, gives the argument that marketing companies would take advantage of this and market the drugs as "cure-alls." The FDA however, is saying it will release medical studies of unapproved uses for these drugs and give them to doctors as medical tools. The author asks, "Who's the real bad guy here?" and "Does it even matter as long as we get better?" of which I have opinions on both. First, there is no bad guy in this situation. The FDA is releasing medical information that may help countless numbers of people, however, by releasing this information they are opening powerful medicines up to "interpretation" on its usefulness by doctors and marketers alike. On the other hand, those who oppose the FDA's decision are worried that these medicines could not only be misused but also misrepresented. The bad side to this, is that those medicines might actually have helped people. Second, though we would all like to blame rich drug companies, I don't believe it is their fault either. They are trying to make a profit of course by encouraging larger usage amounts of their drugs, but unfortunately it is a necessary evil. So does it really matter? Only if the drugs are misused as foreseen and people end up getting hurt instead of getting helped. And if that happens, then we'll have lots of people to blame.