There's still plenty of snake oil as seen in the supplement industry, questionable devices and treatments like in the vet and chiropractic the industry, etc. But my comments were specifically directed to the matter of pharmaceuticals that are long since past their protected patents.
The FDA, or any other federal agency NEVER had authority over food supplements, some medical devices (which ones do you mean when you say questionable?), some veterinarian practices, and the chiropractic world. If Congress could get its act together long enough to pass some laws, regulating some of these might be a good idea. But enough votes are owned by big pharma's lobby groups to prevent this.
And in this thread we see an example of how an alternative will be offered that is even less than the original price.
The example that started this thread is about a drug with a small and limited market. So small that the generic drug makers previously ignored it. They ignored it until that smug fool got too greedy, allowing them to undercut his price, which if I remember were jacked up by 55-fold over the previous price.
The Hedge fund field is virtually unregulated. Compared to the drug industry, it's as lawless as the wild west. That's where this smug fool made his cash. He decided he invest in pharma and try to operate by the same pirate methods, in a field where there is significant federal oversight in many aspects, all except finances. I'd guess the smarter Big Pharma companies are cursing this small timer for shining light on their game. I don't expect any immediate response from the politicians, but the reshaping of health insurance will ultimately limit the obscene profits big pharma now makes. This smug fool may have sped up that process.
