You have no evidence to support that view; where are the free markets full of safe, high-quality, low-cost medicines? Nowhere.

Markets are brilliant, but they are not flawless. All of our experience suggests that they need robust, independent regulation to avoid negative outcomes. There is plenty of scope for talking about how time-to-market for drugs can be improved, or other steps that can be taken to reduce regulatory burden where it's causing problems. But this whole 'let the free market sort it out' is the worst kind of high-school libertarianism.

This is basically a "no true Scotsman" argument. What is a "free market"?

I didn't say we don't need any regulation, but I will say that government-imposed regulation isn't needed.

Non-authority-imposed regulation isn't 'regulation' in any real sense.

A truly free market can and will fill that same need in ways that are much more efficient than any government could hope to do through force.*

All evidence we have seen suggests that an absence of government regulation leads to collusion, anticompetitive practices, races-to-the-bottom, and consumer rights violations. On the other hand, removing regulation can allow more innovative approaches to the market. Point is – it's a case of fine-tuning the balance to make sure that participants in a market have equal power. "Throw is all away and start again" is a seductive and ultimately silly argument.

How exactly isn't it "real"? Even in the absence of a truly free market, plenty of industries have developed their own self-regulated quality standards.

Have you ever checked reviews about something before purchasing? Did a government mandate those reviews to be written?

> an absence of government regulation leads to collusion, anticompetitive practices, races-to-the-bottom, and consumer rights violations

Isn't it odd that we see more of those problems in industries with the most regulation? In a free market, collusion is ineffective, since any newcomer can undercut prices, forcing the colluding market players to compete. The same could be said for any other unethical or harmful practices; if consumers care enough about a problem, they'll vote with their dollars for better alternatives.

You could easily replace "free markets" with "communism" and make the same statement.

FDA is the golden standard for medical testing for around the world (I worked for the FDA and that quote I'll quote one of the employee that stated it). After animal testing there are 4 phases of clinical testing.

You sound like all those libertarians that think free market is gonna some how reduce toxicity and dangerous drug from flooding the market.

That's some crazy pipe dream you got there.

These testing is also base on science and more importantly statistic (survival analysis and such). It is stupid as hell to just ignore it. Statistic is every where in lives and have increase the quality of our life including reliability and quantifying on what is statistic significant or not (random chance).

You are a perfect example of why I'm sick of debating libertarian and just straight up call it out.

Free Market is another excuse for ignorant. Whether it is ignorance of how the FDA and drug works to how the economy work (let's back everythign by the gold standard!).

The FDA should not reduce it's standards, but it should recognize that the expensive and drawn-out approval process creates large inefficiencies in that market, and they should at least strive to minimize those effects.

Patents, indeed, are a much more efficient way of keeping a monopoly, that's their whole point after all. But I don't a link with regulations in that case.