This is nothing new. The same has been going on in drug trials for years.
The trials are paid for by the company making the drug. With FDA and (sometimes) NIH oversight of course. But the FDA is terribly under funded. And the NIH is already a tool for the pharm industry.
And if a company's drug gets into trouble, a few calls to a few of our elected officials takes care of the little fact right quick.
We only hear about it when people die. Remember Vioxx?
When a business fails, its budget is cut as customers leave it in droves for other businesses. But when the FDA fails, the idea is to throw more money at it, to increase the budget of a failure.
The problem is that the FDA is a monopoly. When it fails, which happens routinely, people should be able to look to alternate reviewers -- like the European or Japanese regulatory bodies. That doesn't happen right now.
I'm not convinced it would actually work, but what the OP probably meant is that the pharma companies would pay the certification companies so they could put a "Certified by X" sticker on their packaging. The better X would certify, the more they could ask from the pharma company, so the market would reward proper certification.
Erm... that's just the same as it is now. Pharma companies pay scientists to statistically test there products. My first year stats professor described how difficult it is to say to your employer after a year and a lot of cash that their toothpaste did not perform statistically significantly better than the placebo. How many more consultancy contracts are you going to get?
The drug market will never provide accurate safety information on its own. This was the reason why regulation was sought in the first place. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_medicine
The market? You're kidding right? Us consumers can't make a clear decision if we don't have all the facts. How long did it take the tobacco companies to admit that smoking was bad for us? How many lawsuits?
The market does nothing except exploit. Now nothing wrong with that.. but the idea of a free and open market in America hasn't been true since.. well.. 1980?
I'll accept the FDA wasting money, and in exchange I don't have to listen to them. The fact that homeopathy can be branded medicine virtually eliminates any point in having the FDA with regard to drug efficacy / safety.
Homeopathy can be branded as safe -- which it is. After all, it's just water. I don't think it's branded as an effective medicine -- there are things you aren't allowed to say on the packaging if you've only been certified as harmless.
The trials are paid for by the company making the drug. With FDA and (sometimes) NIH oversight of course. But the FDA is terribly under funded. And the NIH is already a tool for the pharm industry.
And if a company's drug gets into trouble, a few calls to a few of our elected officials takes care of the little fact right quick.
We only hear about it when people die. Remember Vioxx?