FDA Worked Better and Much Cheaper Before 1962 Expansion

Before 1962, the FDA regulated for drug safety, but not for drug efficacy. If the FDA returned to regulating only for safety, that would imply that Phase 3 randomized clinical trials would no longer be mandated. Phase 3 trials are usually more expensive than the Phase 1 and Phase 2 trials combined. They cost a lot more, and usually take a lot longer. If the FDA no longer mandate Phase 3 trials we will have more drug innovation, more quickly, and have much lower costs. And we will have more freedom.

(p. A13) From 1938 through 1962, the Food and Drug Administration required proof of safety before drug approval but not proof of efficacy. The approach was abandoned due to a significant misunderstanding of the thalidomide tragedy—when thousands of babies outside the U.S. were born with severe birth defects.

The issue with thalidomide was a failure of safety, not efficacy. But under pressure to react, Congress required, through the Kefauver-Harris Amendments of 1962, proof of efficacy before granting marketing approval. The new rule addressed a problem that didn’t exist and, in doing so, imposed a substantial new cost burden.

Before 1962, developing a drug took about two years. Now it takes 12 to 14 years. Since 1975 real development costs have risen about 7.5% a year, roughly doubling every decade. Today, we estimate that bringing one successful drug to market costs about $9 billion on average.

For the full commentary, see:

Charles L. Hooper and Solomon S. Steiner. “Deregulation Can Make Medications Cheaper.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., Oct. 18, 2025): A13.

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Oct. 17, 2025, and has the same title as the print version.)

Attia Makes Case for Optimism That Rapamycin Can Extend Human Lifespans

Dr. Peter Attia gives a clear summary of the state of knowledge about the promising supplement rapamycin. (The YouTube clip above, posted by 60 Minutes, is from the CBS 60 Minutes episode that first aired on Sun., Oct. 26, 2025.)

New Hampshire Unbinds Electric Entrepreneurs

The energy sector of the economy is both heavily regulated and much in need of innovation and expansion. Unfortunately the heavy regulation often blocks the innovation and expansion. Travis Fisher and Glen Lyons describe New Hampshire’s solution–a new law that greatly reduces regulations for electricity suppliers who do not connect to the broad “public” grid. Unbinding energy entrepreneurs should bring more innovation and greater competition–more electricity at lower prices.

Fisher and Lyons’s commentary is:

Travis Fisher and Glen Lyons. “New Hampshire Sparks a Revolution in Electricity Supply.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., Sept. 27, 2025): A11.

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date September 26, 2025, and has the same title as the print version.)

Large Randomized Controlled Trial Finds Little Benefit in Free Money to Poor, Undermining Case for Universal Basic Income (UBI)

A variety of arguments have been made in support of a Universal Basic Income (UBI). I am most interested in the argument that says that technology will destroy the jobs of the worst off, and so for them to survive society would be justified in giving them a basic income. I do not believe that in a free society technological progress will on balance destroy the jobs of the worst off. If innovative entrepreneurs are free to innovate, especially in labor markets, they will find ways to employ the worst off.

Others have argued that giving a basic income to the worst off will make them better parents, measurable by better child outcomes in terms of language skills and better behavior and cognition. Several years ago these advocates setup a big, expensive randomized controlled trial to test their argument. The results? None of their hypotheses were supported. The passages quoted below are from a front page New York Times article in which they express their surprise, and for some, their incredulity.

(p. A1) If the government wants poor children to thrive, it should give their parents money. That simple idea has propelled an avid movement to send low-income families regular payments with no strings attached.

Significant but indirect evidence has suggested that unconditional cash aid would help children flourish. But now a rigorous experiment, in a more direct test, found that years of monthly payments did nothing to boost children’s well-being, a result that defied researchers’ predictions and could weaken the case for income guarantees.

After four years of payments, children whose parents received $333 a month from the experiment fared no better than similar children without that help, the study found. They were no more likely to develop language skills, avoid behavioral problems or developmental delays, demonstrate executive function or exhibit brain activity associated with cognitive development.

“I was very surprised — we were all very surprised,” said Greg J. Duncan, an economist at the University of California, Irvine and one of six researchers who led the study, called Baby’s First Years. “The money did not (p. A15) make a difference.”

The findings could weaken the case for turning the child tax credit into an income guarantee, as the Democrats did briefly four years ago in a pandemic-era effort to fight child poverty.

. . .

Though an earlier paper showed promising activity on a related neurological measure in the high-cash infants, that trend did not endure. The new study detected “some evidence” of other differences in neurological activity between the two groups of children, but its significance was unclear.

While researchers publicized the earlier, more promising results, the follow-up study was released quietly and has received little attention. Several co-authors declined to comment on the results, saying that it was unclear why the payments had no effect and that the pattern could change as the children age.

For the full story see:

Jason DeParle. “Cash Stipends Did Not Benefit Needy Children.” The New York Times (Weds., July 30, 2025): A1 & A15.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date July 28, 2025, and has the title “Study May Undercut Idea That Cash Payments to Poor Families Help Child Development.”)

The academic presentation of the research discussed above, can be found in:

Noble, Kimberly, Greg Duncan, Katherine Magnuson, Lisa A. Gennetian, Hirokazu Yoshikawa, Nathan A. Fox, Sarah Halpern-Meekin, Sonya Troller-Renfree, Sangdo Han, Shannon Egan-Dailey, Timothy D. Nelson, Jennifer Mize Nelson, Sarah Black, Michael Georgieff, and Debra Karhson. “The Effect of a Monthly Unconditional Cash Transfer on Children’s Development at Four Years of Age: A Randomized Controlled Trial in the U.S.” National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Working Paper 33844, May 2025.

AI Cannot Know What People Think “At the Very Edge of Their Experience”

The passages quoted below mention “the advent of generative A.I.” From previous reading, I had the impression that “generative A.I” meant A.I. that had reached human level cognition. But when I looked up the meaning of the phrase, I found that it means A.I. that can generate new content. Then I smiled. I was at Wabash College as an undergraduate from 1971-1974 (I graduated in three years). Sometime during those years, Wabash acquired its first minicomputer, and I took a course in BASIC computer programming. I distinctly remember programming a template for a brief poem where at key locations I inserted a random word variable. Where the random word variable occurred, the program randomly selected from one of a number of rhyming words. So each time the program was run, a new rhyming poem would be “generated.” That was new content, and sometimes it was even amusing. But it wasn’t any good, and it did not have deep meaning, and if what it generated was true, it was only by accident. So I guess “the advent of generative A.I.” goes back at least to the early 1970s when Art Diamond messed around with a DEC.

This is not the main point of the passages quoted below. The main point is that the frontiers of human thought are not on the internet, and so cannot be part of the training of A.I. So whatever A.I. can do, it can’t think at the human “edge.”

(p. B3) Dan Shipper, the founder of the media start-up Every, says he gets asked a lot whether he thinks robots will replace writers. He swears they won’t, at least not at his company.

. . .

Mr. Shipper argues that the advent of generative A.I. is merely the latest step in a centuries-long technological march that has brought writers closer to their own ideas. Along the way, most typesetters and scriveners have been erased. But the part of writing that most requires humans remains intact: a perspective and taste, and A.I. can help form both even though it doesn’t have either on its own, he said.

“One example of a thing that journalists do that language models cannot is come and have this conversation with me,” Mr. Shipper said. “You’re going out and talking to people every day at the very edge of their experience. That’s always changing. And language models just don’t have access to that, because it’s not on the internet.”

For the full story see:

Benjamin Mullin. “Will Writing Survive A.I.? A Start-Up Is Betting on It.” The New York Times (Mon., May 26, 2025): B3.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date May 21, 2025, and has the title “Will Writing Survive A.I.? This Media Company Is Betting on It.”)

If AI Takes Some Jobs, New Human Jobs Will Be Created

In the passage quoted below, Atkinson makes a sound general case for optimism on the effects of AI on the labor market. I would add to that case that many are currently overestimating the potential cognitive effectiveness of AI. Humans have a vast reservoir of unarticulated common sense knowledge that is not accessible to AI training. In addition AI cannot innovate at the frontiers of knowledge, not yet posted to the internet.

(p. A15) AI doomsayers frequently succumb to what economists call the “lump of labor” fallacy: the idea that there is a limited amount of work to be done, and if a job is eliminated, it’s gone for good. This fails to account for second-order effects, whereby the saving from increased productivity is recycled back into the economy in the form of higher wages, higher profits and reduced prices. This creates new demand that in turn creates new jobs. Some of these are entirely new occupations, such as “content creator assistant,” but others are existing jobs that are in higher demand now that people have more money to spend—for example, personal trainers.

Suppose an insurance firm uses AI to handle many of the customer-service functions that humans used to perform. Assume the technology allows the firm to do the same amount of work with 50% less labor. Some workers would lose their jobs, but lower labor costs would decrease insurance premiums. Customers would then be able to spend less money on insurance and more on other things, such as vacations, restaurants or gym memberships.

In other words, the savings don’t get stuffed under a mattress; they get spent, thereby creating more jobs.

For the full commentary, see:

Robert D. Atkinson. “No, AI Robots Won’t Take All Our Jobs.” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., June 6, 2025): A15.

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date June 5, 2025, and has the same title as the print version.)

When Portugal Is Too Hot, Move to England

When their current waters warm sea creatures often migrate to cooler waters. So just noticing the fewer creatures in the warmer waters will overestimate the harm done by the warming. In the article quoted below, when Mediterranean waters warm, Octopuses migrate to English waters. Mediterranean fishermen lose, English fishermen gain, but there is no clear net loss or gain to the Octopuses or to humanity in general.

This example supports my claim that we too often ignore the benefits of global warming.

(p. A4) Expecting his normal catch of plaice, turbot and Dover sole, Arthur Dewhirst was surprised when his nets spilled their contents onto his ship’s deck earlier this year. Instead of shiny, flapping fish, hundreds of octopuses wriggled and writhed.

His first thought? “Dollar signs! Dollar signs! Dollar signs!” he recalled with a laugh, sitting in his trawler last month in the harbor at Brixham in Devon, England.

Across England’s southern coast, fishing crews reported an extraordinary boom in octopus catches this summer. Sold for around 7 pounds a kilo, it was sometimes worth an extra £10,000 ($13,475) a week to Mr. Dewhirst, he said.

. . .

There are several theories about the causes of this puzzling phenomenon, but scientists say that warming water temperatures make the region more hospitable to this species of octopus, which is normally found off the Mediterranean coast.

According to Steve Simpson, a professor of marine biology at the University of Bristol, “climate change is a likely driver” of the population boom. “We are right on the northern limit of the octopus species range, but our waters are getting warmer, so our little island of Great Britain is becoming increasingly favorable for octopus populations,” he said.

For the full story see:

Stephen Castle. “Octopuses Bring Windfalls and Anxieties to England’s Southern Coast.” The New York Times (Tues., September 30, 2025): A4.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Sept. 29, 2025, and has the title “Octopuses Invade the English Coast, ‘Eating Anything in Their Path’.”)

Do Not Ridicule Those Who Know How to Sew

15 years ago I ran a blog entry quoting Brian Fagan’s theory that we Homo sapiens (aka Cro-Magnons) outlasted the Neanderthals because we developed the sewing needle technology that allowed us to sew tighter fitting garments against the cold. Now added evidence elaborates and supports Fagan’s theory. Near the time when Neanderthals became extinct, the magnetic poles of the earth shifted over a few hundred years, allowing substantially more ultraviolet radiation to hit the earth than usual. With better-filling garments, due to sewing needles, Homo sapiens were better protected against that radiation.

The WSJ article summarizing the new research is:

Aylin Woodward. “New Light Shed on the Demise of Neanderthals.” The Wall Street Journal (Thurs., Aug. 7, 2025): A3.

(Note: the online version of the NYT article has the date August 6, 2025, and has the title “Did UV Rays Doom Neanderthals?”)

The published academic paper summarized in The Wall Street Journal article mentioned and cited above is:

Mukhopadhyay, Agnit, Sanja Panovska, Raven Garvey, Michael W. Liemohn, Natalia Ganjushkina, Austin Brenner, Ilya Usoskin, Mikhail Balikhin, and Daniel T. Welling. “Wandering of the Auroral Oval 41,000 Years Ago.” Science Advances 11, no. 16 (April 16, 2025): eadq7275.

Innovative Entrepreneur Alfred Beach Privately Built and Operated America’s First Subway

Even classical liberals, strong supporters of free markets, often believe that utilities and mass transit need to be built and operated by governments. So I was delighted to learn from the book review quoted below that the first subway in the United States was privately built by a spirited innovative entrepreneur. That spirit still lives today, if we let it. (Ponder Travis Kalanick.)

(p. C9) In November 1869, the New York inventor Alfred Beach pushed the “move fast and break laws” principle to the limit in developing America’s first underground passenger railway. Without city approval—officials thought he was building a small system to improve mail delivery—he carved out a tunnel 8 feet wide, 300 feet long and right under Broadway.

. . .

Beach (1826-96) . . . was a remarkable character, a precocious innovator who channeled the forces—mass media and technological change—that were making the world modern. His father owned the New York Sun, the country’s most popular paper, and co-founded the Associated Press. Beach went to work for the Sun as a teenager; by 22 he was running it with his brother, and by 25 he sold his share to concentrate on his real passion: Scientific American, which he had bought a few years earlier. He and his partner made the publication a success and built a complementary business filing patents for the inventors who read it. When his client Thomas Edison “perfected the phonograph in 1877,” Mr. Algeo notes, he gave Beach the first demonstration, recording himself singing “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

In 1849, when he was 23, Beach outlined in the magazine’s pages his vision of a railroad beneath Broadway, with two tracks, gas lights and stops on every corner. “The proposal was radical—the world’s first subway wouldn’t open in London for another fourteen years—and the technological hurdles were immense,” Mr. Algeo writes. The projected route involved a tunnel 20 times as long as the longest extant.

. . .

Beach . . . struggled to get approval for his plan, stymied by the interlocking corruption of Tammany bosses and real-estate interests. Elevated railways and other mass-transit rivals threatened in the meantime to crowd him out. When his railway finally did open, it lasted a mere three years, doomed by the financial crisis of 1873.

For the full review see:

Timothy Farrington. “Bookshelf; One Man’s Tunnel Vision.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., Sept. 27, 2025): C9.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the review has the date September 25, 2025, and has the title “Bookshelf; ‘New York’s Secret Subway’: Tunnel Visions.”)

The book under review is:

Algeo, Matthew. New York’s Secret Subway: The Underground Genius of Alfred Beach and the Origins of Mass Transit. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2025.