Markets provide goods and services of better quality and lower cost than those provided by governments. That especially holds true for medical goods and services. From Lew Rockwell at lewrockwell.com:
In a free society, people have the right to decide what to do with their own bodies. If you want to take something that “orthodox” medicine says you shouldn’t, this decision should be up to you. If the government can ban “dangerous drugs,” why not dangerous ideas too? As the great Ludwig von Mises points out, “Opium and morphine are certainly dangerous, habit-forming drugs. But once the principle is admitted that it is the duty of government to protect the individual against his own foolishness, no serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments. A good case could be made out in favor of the prohibition of alcohol and nicotine. And why limit the government’s benevolent providence to the protection of the individual’s body only? Is not the harm a man can inflict on his mind and soul even more disastrous than any bodily evils? Why not prevent him from reading bad books and seeing bad plays, from looking at bad paintings and statues and from hearing bad music? The mischief done by bad ideologies, surely, is much more pernicious, both for the individual and for the whole society, than that done by narcotic drugs.
These fears are not merely imaginary specters terrifying secluded doctrinaires. It is a fact that no paternal government, whether ancient or modern, ever shrank from regimenting its subjects’ minds, beliefs, and opinions. If one abolishes man’s freedom to determine his own consumption, one takes all freedoms away. The naive advocates of government interference with consumption delude themselves when they neglect what they disdainfully call the philosophical aspect of the problem. They unwittingly support the case of censorship, inquisition, religious intolerance, and the persecution of dissenters.”
This is much more than a theoretical issue. The FDA controls new drugs with an iron fist. It bans drugs that people who live in other parts of the world can get and have passed their countries’ tests for safety. One example is ambroxol, a very effective cough medicine widely available in Europe: “Ambroxol is a mucolytic medicine used to treat respiratory diseases associated with excessive mucus secretion. Its onset of action starts after 30 minutes of oral administration. It works by reducing the thickness of the mucus, making it easier to cough out.”
