The FDA Follies.

• Author: Higgs, Robert

WHY WAS THE U.S. FOOD AND Drug Administration so fouled up during the 1980s? Herbert Burkholz in his book falls back on the familiar left-liberal litany: It was Reagan's fault. In doing so, he ignores the long-standing problems inherent in bureaucratic attempts to achieve "safety" at any cost.

Burkholz views the FDA fiascoes of the 1980s as anomalous because he has a starry-eyed view of the agency in earlier days. He says nothing about the tens of thousands who died prematurely in the '50s, '60s, and '70s because the FDA would not permit sellers to tell consumers about the health benefits of lowering dietary fat; nor does he mention that the agency dallied for nearly a decade before approving new beta blocker drugs being used to treat heart disease with great success in other countries. In Burkholz's eyes, before the Reagan administration arrived to ruin everything with its "cold-blooded business-as-usual attitude," the agency epitomized "the best that there was in public service: high, but attainable, scientific goals...sought by dedicated professionals." It enjoyed "worldwide respect" and was "a proud place" animated by a "laudatory purpose." In those days, heroic bureaucrats busied themselves holding in check "avaricious" capitalists who strained to peddle poisonous products to an unwitting public.

Then, with the arrival of the Reaganauts, who held the budget in check and insisted that the FDA go easy on business, the agency hit the skids. In a succession of incidents ranging from the farcical Chilean grape scare to the exposed bribery of FDA examiners, the bureaucrats dropped the ball or ran the wrong way with it. But can the "Reagan did it" explanation really account for this sorry succession of screw-ups? Evidently even Burkholz has doubts, as he opines that "the workings of the FDA during the 1980s seem to defy understanding."

For those aware of public-choice theory, the events of the 1980s present no mystery. The FDA's follies are precisely the sort of actions that one expects a powerful government bureaucracy to take--self-serving, irresponsible, heedless of the injuries it causes so long as they are ignored by the news media, and vindictive against whistle-blowers. Burkholz's ideology prevents him from presenting a coherent interpretation, but the facts he relates tell a sufficiently woeful tale in spite of the author's obtuseness.

Consider the generic drug scandal that climaxed in 1989. Under legislation enacted in 1984 to...