The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is one of the most powerful of federal regulatory agencies, if not the most powerful, regulating about 25 percent of all consumer goods in the United States. It routinely makes decisions that determine the well-being of millions of people in the United States and around the world concerning foods, drugs, medical devices, and dietary supplements. Although the FDA was created to protect the public, could its actual operations have the opposite effect, causing enormous harm to public health? Assembling the work of three outstanding scholars, "Hazardous to Our Health?" provides a lucid and comprehensive examination of the FDA: How has the FDA acquired its vast powers? What have been the effects of the FDA? Why has the FDA failed to achieve its goals? Who actually benefits and loses from the FDA? How has the FDA defended itself against criticism? What real alternatives exist to the FDA? and much more. "Hazardous to Our Health?" goes beyond mere assumptions, conjectures, and political predilections to examine the facts and findings of independent authorities. Providing far more than just an account of the past and a warning for the future, this powerful book identifies the reforms necessary to safeguard American health care.
Dr. Robert Higgs (born 1 February 1944) is an American economic historian and an economist of the Austrian school. His writings in economics and economic history have most often focused on the causes, means, and effects of government growth. Dr. Higgs has written extensively about the ratchet effect, the economic causes of the Great Depression, regime uncertainty, and the myth that World War II caused economic recovery in the late 1940s.
Currently Dr. Higgs is Senior Fellow in Political Economy for The Independent Institute and Editor of the Institute's quarterly journal The Independent Review. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Johns Hopkins University, and he has taught at the University of Washington, Lafayette College, Seattle University, and the University of Economics, Prague. He has been a visiting scholar at Oxford University and Stanford University, and a fellow for the Hoover Institution and the National Science Foundation.
Dr. Higgs is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Gary Schlarbaum Award for Lifetime Defense of Liberty, Thomas Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties, Lysander Spooner Award for Advancing the Literature of Liberty, Friedrich von Wieser Memorial Prize for Excellence in Economic Education, and Templeton Honor Rolls Award on Education in a Free Society.
