You’ve probably heard of skyrocketing EpiPen prices, or the legal controversy surrounding the stem cell therapies. What about the fact that Americans pay more for prescription drugs than people in nearly every other developed country, even though we’re at the forefront of medical innovation?

What if I told you that this wasn’t a problem created by ‘big business’ or ‘greedy entrepreneurs,’ as the media might tell you? What if I told you the reason these people succeed at price-gouging, monopolizing, and cheating their customers is none other than government regulations?

At face value, one might think that the purpose of these regulations is to protect our safety — and that the endless bureaucracy making them exists to safeguard human flourishing. But that’s not true — at least if you value your right to choose. The FDA violates our fundamental freedom to act on our own judgement by telling us which drugs we have a ‘right’ to use and which ones we don’t. They infringe upon our right to choose the level of risk we are willing to accept in a product. And even worse, they only grant permission to produce a drug to companies and people who have amassed enough political power. Overriding individual judgement and rewarding political power is a recipe for rising drug prices and unearned monopolies.

Overriding individual judgement and rewarding political power is a recipe for rising drug prices and unearned monopolies.

Like every other government organization that violates our freedoms, the FDA doesn’t protect us — it causes us profound harm.

The actions of the FDA have cost millions of people their lives. That is absolutely inexcusable and remarkably unjust. By ripping away every citizen’s right to choose lifesaving medical treatment, they compromise the well-being and flourishing of the very people they seek to protect.

The actions of the FDA have cost millions of people their lives.

Take, for instance, the case of Abigail Burroughs. At the age of 19, she was diagnosed with squamous cell cancer that had spread to her neck and lungs. Erbitux, an experimental drug, showed life-saving promise. But the FDA destroyed any chance of Abigail surviving. Erbitux could only be administered in exclusive, government-regulated trials — Abigail could not qualify for any of these. The FDA deprived her of a life-saving treatment— and she died because of this.

More recently, the FDA has been partnering with monopolists to regulate stem cell therapy and blatantly violate self-ownership. If they succeed, citizens will no longer be legally allowed to use cells from their own body to save their lives. And to what end? How can we possibly declare this organization moral if it undermines the safety of people who need and deserve treatment the most? How can we claim it is ‘necessary’ if it makes lifesaving innovations nearly impossible to produce and purchase?

Beyond restricting patients from choosing life-saving medications, the FDA does something that is arguably far more despicable: it violates the rights of innovators. The companies that produce lifesaving medicine have a fundamental right to do so to the fullest extent, and voluntarily trade these medicines with patients. By severely regulating innovation and productivity in the medical industry, the FDA violates these rights — and the repercussions are drastic. Restraining the productive and the innovative in the name of the “public good” creates irreversible suffering and stagnation — and this is unjustifiable.

The FDA has caused irreparable damage to millions of innocents by violating their fundamental right to choose. In doing so, they have severely restricted innovators from producing lifesaving medication, creating coercive monopolies and drastically increasing drug prices. If we care about the lives of innocent patients and the future of medicine, we must abolish the FDA.