alt Hacker NewsWhatever policy we pursue, whatever decision we make, is not forever (at a society level).
When people die, we change policy. When people feel like they cannot get the treatment they need, we change policy.
Unfortunately, this is very complicated and emotionally heavy, and it is much easier to set down the burden on someone else's shoulders, in the form of blame.
We want the FDA to do life critical, complicated and contradictory things, so it's easy to create a narrative that blames the FDA.
The other option besides blame is shared responsibility and humility, but it feels like people are not very good at thinking that way right now.
Nobody "created" a narrative that blames the FDA. The FDA is factually complicit in these deaths. Three review teams and two senior officials voted unanimously against approval, but the (then) head of FDA's CBER was buddies with Sarepta, and so they got approved and three people have died. Nobody created that narrative. It's simply what happened.