Marathon Pundit: Glenn & Helen podcast with the Univ. of Chicago's Richard Epstein

Although it can hardly be called a conservative college, the University of Chicago, where the great Milton Friedman once hung his hat, certainly has a higher level of sanity than most other schools.

An example is U of C Professor of Law Richard Epstein, who is interviewed in the latest Glenn & Helen Show podcast. Professor Epstein is the author of two books, Overdose: How Excessive Government Regulation Stifles Pharmaceutical Innovation and Mortal Peril: Our Inalienable Right to Health Care?

It's one of the best Pajamas podcasts I've listened to in quite some time.

Here is one of Epstein's many insightful observations on how government regulation stifles the development of and approval of medications that help people, and often save lives:

There's no question that the FDA is a New Deal type agency, and those kinds of agencies almost almost always lead to stagnation in the areas in which they regulate.

And another...

But as a practical argument, the case for regulation with the respect to these key kinds of products is widely overstated relative to the rather puny benefits it generates.

Glenn Reynolds contributes his insight:

If you're going to treat people who work for companies that make life saving drugs as if they're working for tobacco companies, fewer people are going to want to do it, and you're going to pay a real social price for that, and I think that, in the long run, may kill as many people as some bad drugs.

When Jonas Salk developed in polio vaccine in the 1950s, he was hailed as a hero. Today pharmaceutical companies are the bad guys. Just look at mass media entertainment. In the 1940s, and up to this day, Nazis, and deservedly so, were common "stock villains" in movies and TV, as were to a lesser extent Communists until the late days of the Cold War. Then it was South Africans.

In the early 21st century, even though there is an enemy, al Qaeda, worthy of villain status, sadly, it's often pharmaceutical companies that are today's "stock villains."

These companies develop products that save lives and ease suffering, and yes while making a profit, perform an enormously important public service.

Listen to or download the podcast here. Or subscribe for free on the iTunes web site.

Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds and his blogger wife, Dr. Helen Smith, make up the Glenn & Helen Show.

The podcast is sponsored by Volvo Automobiles.

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