Right. Because we have seen how the FDA has approved products and that approval has protected companies from lawsuits for producing a legal product.

We have seen how the FDA doesn’t protect the food supply, and often serves to protect large companies while stepping on the smaller or even medium sized producer.

The fact of the matter is that despite your and Ron’s contention, this is not a “black and white” issue. All people want is reasonable regulations that actually protect people rather than do harm.

You would rather have laws that don’t protect perfectly. I would rather address those laws and find out why they do not work. Once that is achieved, you fix the laws. Instead, the “black and white” thinkers say that “if a regulation doesn’t work, we need more regulations that don’t work!”

There is nothing wrong with questioning the effectiveness of a law or regulation before and after its implementation.

Otherwise, you are in love with regulations, and don’t care about their actual costs and effectiveness.

This is right. To the man with a hammer, everything is a nail. Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that we have too many laws and we are overly regulated. I’m sure there is some truth to that contention. So from this, we conclude that every new law must be bad.

The only good thing about this rule is that it required no thinking. New law/regulation = bad.

He is close to right. The real solution to this problem is to prevent people from coming into hospitals. Then people wouldn’t catch infections in hospitals.

BTW, let’s ban ties completely. (Where’s a smiley face when you really need one?)

It is this type of extreme black or white thinking that is naive to the point of being dangerous. I don’t think you have any idea of the laws that currently work well that protect you. Do they work perfectly? No. But I’d sure as shit prefer to have an FDA, for example, regulating food and drug safety, than nothing at all.

Myron, you are correct that most of us here don’t have all the answers, but I can assure you that neither do the politicians and bureaucrats either. And in most cases, we as a country and civilization would indeed be better off if they did nothing rather that stifle us and smother us with senseless and useless laws and regulations.

Norway has a plan. They don’t allow the use of the super drugs except for very special occasions. They do not have a super bug problem.

Children who are allowed to play in that great Petri dish of outdoors show fewer, if not none, of the allergies and susceptibilities of infection because their bodies created their own antibodies, as we were programed many eons ago to do. Yes what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.

To the rest of you, I suggest you reread my initial comment, disregarding the bad attempt at humor and sarcasm. This is a “feel-good” law. It will do little if any to solve the problem, but some politician will demand re-election on the basis of saving you at the hospital.

I’m a great fan of those hand sanitizing stations they all installed during the supposed flu pandemic. I always sanitize my hands on the way out. Perhaps I should go through the decon shower.

Interesting to see this comment. Why, then do people go crazy about “deadly radiation”, which also cannot be seen or touched, or smelled, etc.?

That kinda sums up this blog for me. I’ve been reading this blog or a while and struggle to come up with the central thesis here. It appears founded on the premise that there are too many lawyers and too many frivolous lawsuits. OK, fine. Yet most of the posts are themed on “here’s some law or government intervention that looks absurd”. Yet there is no sense of what a reasonable solution is. Civil remedies as opposed to regulation? Well, no, that leads to lawsuits. Better regulation? Well, no, governments are stupid and regulation leads to absurd outcomes — every instance of an absurdity or unintended outcome seems to be a tacit argument for abandoning the regulation entirely rather than reform or attempting to get legislators to craft regulation better. No regulation at all and limited means of civil redress? Really?

Ron, think of it more as entertainment. It’s just fun to sputter “stupid law! stupid government!” at the sharkbait that’s thrown out without having to think too hard. It’s basically the legal equivalent of failblog.

Ban the neckties. It is a proven public health issue.