REGULATION: Reappraising Saccharin--and the FDA

Of all the federal agencies regulating business and consumer affairs, none is more regularly or vehemently denounced than the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Critics have variously blasted it as arbitrary, ill-organized, arrogant, inbred and inept. There is a reason for the scourging: the FDA affects both consumers and manufacturers where they are most sensitiveĀ—in the products that they can buy or sell. The agency regulates everything from lipstick to kidney dialysis machines. All told, the FDA activity touches on 200 of every consumer dollar spent. Says an agency public relations...

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