Daniel Carpenter: uncertainty

Transcript context

…If we think about testing for COVID-19, starting maybe with Paul Romer and Glen Weyl, who has been on this podcast, Michael Mina, a variety of commentators, Alex Tabarrok, now Ezra Klein — all have believed, and in some cases shown using measurements, mathematics, statistics, that if much earlier COVID-19 testing had been available, although imperfect, that the United States would have been much better off. The FDA only now, this week in the end of March, is allowing such testing. Doesn’t that verify the old-style Sam Peltzman argument that the FDA is too risk averse, too slow? And when the FDA finally did let some of that testing through, you had to do it with a prescription, which seems to make no sense under any worldview. Was Sam Peltzman right about the FDA? Now, let me just say I agree with the criticism of the FDA on testing, and I’m pretty sure I mentioned this to a reporter back in the spring, I don’t know whether they ever . . . I’ve said this to a number of folks. For what it’s worth, again, keep in mind that that’s actually not the same division that approves drugs, which by the way, is not the same division that Sam Peltzman critiqued, so I don’t think it verifies Sam Peltzman, and it’s not clear to me . . . We talked about — But the general view that the FDA is too slow, right?…

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