Dogs, snakes and the FDA

If the FDA is here to make sure the things we ingest are safe, they're still not in the business of making sure we have access to things that might save our lives, but that the Drug companies don't feel like producing for one reason or another; like profitability.

I thought I saw a Coral Snake warming itself in the morning sun last month; coiled up on the table next to the hammock on my patio. It wasn't, I decided after checking my old Boy Scout manual, but it can be hard to tell. Others haven't been quite as lucky, like the boy bitten near here last Tuesday. He survived, but only because of the few vials of antivenin remaining in Florida hospitals that were rushed to him. About 40 coral snake bites are reported in Florida every year, partly because so many residents "ain't from around here" and don't watch where they step or take care when retrieving golf balls.

There are about 80 bites from this deadly snake in the country every year, but that's not enough for a drug company to make a profit on, and so it just isn't made any more and the government doesn't get involved to the extent of making sure its constituents have a source of many drugs and treatments for ailments not common enough to be profitable. That would smell too much like Socialism.

Certainly the one manufacturer in Mexico could supply the need, but they're in Mexico and the FDA is usually quick to tell us that they can't assure us of the safety of foreign drugs even if they come from places like Canada. We can however be fairly certain that the snakes have no such scruples and that if you're bitten, you're probably dead. Of course if you're a dog, the FDA doesn't care if Mexican products are used, so perhaps if you're so unlucky as to be struck, you can find a veterinarian willing to risk his license to save your life.

Maybe this is one more example of how markets are self regulating at our cost and our peril. We do have billions to spend on preventing people from using harmless things, but when it comes to saving American lives, the government and the snakes are on the same side.