US government to withdraw longstanding warnings about cholesterol (2015)
Wouldn't it be nice if there were more government warnings and less restrictions / regulations?Imagine if the FDA, instead of blocking new drugs for 10 years and $1B, it simply withheld its endorsement until satisfied by the clinical trials. Consumers could then take the government's recommendations into consideration when making a decision and drugs could get to market much faster.The history of medical reversals -- and in this case, nutrition reversal -- shows that the government isn't magic.A whole raft of restrictions could be converted to warnings and recommendations, freeing up industry to innovate and consumers to take a little more responsibility for themselves.Imagine the history of the past few decades if the state had outlawed any foods with more than X% cholesterol. Or trans-fats. Or any of the other food fads over that time. It would have been terrible, especially now that the recommendation is reversed. The whole time, consumers were allowed to factor government warnings into their decisions, but food producers weren't breaking the law by selling foods with (X+1)% cholesterol.