Regulation: Do it Now! Do it More!

My response to those who don’t like regulation is: Act Right.  Don’t do things that create the need for regulations.  Don’t send 8 year old children into coal mines, for example, or to pick cotton.  Don’t keep a patient unwashed and in dirty sheets for weeks at a time. Don’t send automobiles out on the road, known to blow up from a slight rear-ender. Don’t give loans to those who, induced with exuberant promises, accept them and then can’t pay them back; those who can’t follow the flipping cards.

Frankly, it’s appalling that we have need of most of the regulations we have — all brought on by stupid, greedy, contemptible behavior.

Today, on the front page of the NY Times we are treated to the spectacle of “weevils floating in vials of heparin.  Morphine cartridges that contain up to twice the labeled dose.  Manufacturing plants with rusty tools, mold in its production areas and — in one memorable case– a barrel of urine. And these are NOT the loosely regulated compounding pharmacies, one of which, produced the fungus loaded spinal solution which has caused meningitis deaths across the country.

And it gets worse.  The licensing of all such firms should be enough to cover the cost of their regulation; no grovelling to state and feds to pay for it, and complaints about GOP budget cutters.  Heck, put in a clause that as complaints and findings go down, so will regulatory visits.  Self-reporting gets an additional benefit.  The point is to deliver products not contaminated by short-cuts, skimming and profit-taking.