This is 100% wrong. Rare events with significant health impact regularly result in FDA clinical holds, temporary restrictions in distribution, or even permanent withdrawal. The FDA is more apt to act the the wider the use of the drug in people with no other health concerns. https://twitter.com/SteveCicala/status/1381976319781695489

For example, birth control gets more scrutiny than oncology drugs.

Trovafloxacin was withdrawn in the EU and severely restricted in the US based on 14 cases of liver failure in roughly 2.5 million administrations.

The public health risk / benefit calculation is also affected by other drugs on the market. The fact that we have 2 other effective vaccines without this cloud hanging over them also influences the FDA's decision.

Look, I am a veteran of Big Pharma and current biotechie. My personal stock options portfolio took a kick in the fork when trovafloxacin was withdrawn.

It was still the right thing to do, because I want to sell other drugs in the future. I want you, the consumer to be confident that the chance of fucking DEATH is *lower* than literally 1 in a million when you take my handiwork.

And what in the FUCK is it with economists and these sorts of bad takes? Tufts and Brown and a whole lot of other institutions need to take a public stance against their faculty pontificating outside their expertise.

As I said about Nate Silver, this is an area where, if you're wrong, you can't sweep it under the rug and keep pontificating. People will die.

We actually QC our data and run after action reports on why we were wrong in medicine. I know owning up to mistakes is a foreign concept in Econ, but maybe they could take a page?