Doug wrote:No, I have given the example of the history of medicine, and in it the free market did NOT step in and protect the consumer.
DOUGHogeye wrote: ... after the government intervened and obstructed free-market alternatives. I have shown that, when the State does not intervene, free-market solutions arise.
No. The FDA history, from its website:
Here.
Show that at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, private companies were protecting consumers from fraudulent and adulterated drugs.Beginning as the Division of Chemistry and then (after July 1901) the Bureau of Chemistry, the modern era of the FDA dates to 1906 with the passage of the Federal Food and Drugs Act; this added regulatory functions to the agency's scientific mission. The Bureau of Chemistry's name changed to the Food, Drug, and Insecticide Administration in July 1927, when the nonregulatory research functions of the bureau were transferred elsewhere in the department. In July 1930 the name was shortened to the present version. FDA remained under the Department of Agriculture until June 1940, when the agency was moved to the new Federal Security Agency. In April 1953 the agency again was transferred, to the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). Fifteen years later FDA became part of the Public Health Service within HEW, and in May 1980 the education function was removed from HEW to create the Department of Health and Human Services, FDA's current home.