The FDA frustrates me to death

The FDA frustrates me to death. I am a board-certified lactation consultant and I counsel with many women who need a galactogogue - a medication to increase their milk supply. The most effective drug with the fewest side effects is also the cheapest: domperidone. Unfortunately, since it is a cheap drug, the manufacturers have chosen not to spend the fortune required to seek FDA approval and the drug can only be gotten from a very few compounding pharmacies in the U.S. or ordered from overseas, which is supposed to be illegal. The FDA also issued a warning about the use of domperidone based on reactions in a few people taking it intravenously and ignoring the real experts on its use in breastfeeding mothers. And so, most of the mothers I know in need of this medication take metoclopramide instead, even though metoclopramide crosses the blood/brain barrier and causes many side effects including depression.

Today I read a Lockerroom post by my friend Nancy Winter that suggested we didn't need the FDA. As frustrated as I am with them, I remember all too well what happened before the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938. The Elixir Sulphanilimide tragedy taught us that the individual does not have the means to assure that the medication is taking himself, or worse yet, giving his children, is not diluted with a fatal poison. Europe learned this lesson with the birth of over 10,000 thalidomide babies in the late 50's. I want my medications tested on animals, and in people, before I use it.

So, what's a free-marketeer to do? Perhaps an Underwriter's Laboratory for drugs? An FDA that tests, labels for safety (like the use in pregnancy classifications already given), and then stands back? I'm not sure, but I suppose the FDA doesn't really frustrate me to death, that's what happened before the regulations.