Some of my Liberal friends may feel envious that I can win a vote with just 13% support, to claim the title of ‘best solo libertarian blog in Australia’. As I do not use the label ‘libertarian’ I did not vote for myself. And as I only read a couple of the other fourteen contestants regularly enough to form an opinion on their relative merits, I did not vote for anyone else either.
But 161 readers of the Australian Libertarian Society blog did back me – though I do not know whether this is because they like my blog, or because at one point Graeme Bird was in front, and I was the most realistic chance of preventing him from winning (Graeme is the only person on moderation at this blog, but even if he wasn’t most of his comments would still be rejected for containing obscenities).
Whether I am Australia’s best solo libertarian blogger or not, I am confident that I am Carlton’s best classical liberal blogger….
Andrew Norton 
David
Please stop evading the issue seeing you raised it. Do you think the FDA should be regulating herbal teas or do you think like Ron Paul that sort of thing is best left to people to decide?
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In fact, medical conditions associated with star anise teas include seizures, vomiting, jitteriness and rapid eye movement.
After thalidomide, the US government decided that a drug manufacturer should prove the safety and efficacy of their compounds. I don’t think that’s too much to ask. Yes, the cited herbal tea example is extreme, yes I think these things should be regulated.
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RE : Ron Paul and herbal remedies.
I would not trust a wealthy doctor who said he did a lot of work for free. He would have had half the Houston ghetto lining up to see him if it were true. He is all about increasing the cost of health care in a system whereby poor immigrant families get nothing and children die young.
Many of todays powerful drugs are derived from plants from Asia and South America which were and still are presented in tea format. Drugs that will knock you out or alter your heart rate.
Some of the new painkillers being developed from shellfish poison for example have side effects like heart attacks.
The range of medicines and health products available in US is staggering.
It is worth testing new drugs but not for 10 years, not on animals, and not on humans. Human tissue can be grown using genetics which is effective for testing cellular and chromosomal changes and averting disaster.
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David
You’re still avoiding the issue. I have patiently taught you that the US med/FDA/ Drug/herbal tea process is very regulated.
You believe it should be highly regulated, obviously more so than here.
Do you therefore consider anyone who doesn’t think herbal teas need FDA authorization are kooks?
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Sorry missed this
Do you think Aussie Authorities are koos seeing they regulate anywhere near enough to US standards?
You can purchase serious stuff over the counter like Nitro tabs to help people with Angina.
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JC,
Regulation can be as simple as asking the manufacturer to put a label on the product to indicate it isn’t safe for infants, or requiring that only pharmacists distribute the product, or outright banning if it’s dangerous.
Herbal teas can range from a variety of benign infusions to some seriously dangerous products – you can’t blithely dismiss the regulation of something just because it’s “tea”. To dismiss the regulation of a wide variety of potentially toxic items because it’s “tea” is simple minded, to demand that all “tea” be de-regulated (or removed from food and drug regulation on issues of safety and toxicity) is kookville central.
Even simple things can be toxic like peanuts. The level of regulation needs to be commensurate with the risk. For example, there are kids at our local school who have peanut allergies and the school politely asked parents in the community not to send their children to school with peanut butter sandwiches. That level of cooperation is possible on a small level of a few hundred parents.
However, at the national level the dynamics change dramatically. You and I can’t just ring up the owner of a factory and ask them whether their production line switches between shifts from peanut products to other things. In this case, our equivalent of the FDA requires that the products are marked with this possibility (may be traces of nuts).
This information costs the manufacturer very little, informs customers that the product may well be toxic, saves us money in medical costs and occasionally saves a life.
In short, it keeps us safe from nuts.
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David
You have called everyone kook’s because they don’t agree with your level of deregulation.
Do you continue to slime Ron Paul because he disagrees with you?
You still want to evade this issue.
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JC
You’ve “patiently taught me” that you’re completely unwilling to read the answers to your questions – you’re evading the responses.
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