How Government Hinders Us

Just ran across an example from my own life.

I used to use a styptic pencil to quickly stop bleeding from shaving nicks and other minor surface bleeds.  Several years ago I ran across a product, Nik+Aid, which is essentially a styptic ball-point pen.  With a really big ball-point.  It was more convenient, faster, didn't break, and it worked great.  It lasted quite some time, apparently.

We recently ran out, and my wife and I (she used it too) have been looking for it all over and can't find it.

So I recently looked it up to see if I could find some for sale on the web.

I found this:

The manufacturer of Nik+Aid stopped making it. Here's their explanation as to why (from an inquiry by another befuddled customer):

Thank you for your inquiry and your kind comments regarding Nik+Aid . Unfortunately The U.S. FDA has changed the requirements on the OTC category that Nik+Aid falls under and they have asked us to prove (via clinical trials), that Nik+Aid meets its claim to "stop bleeding fast". The time off the market that it would have taken and the expense involved were beyond our budget. Therefore a decision was made almost 3 years ago to discontinue.


Unfortunately we do not have any inventory left and I don't know of any retailer anywhere that does. I'm truly sorry for the inconvenience this has caused. I have saved your email and you will be contacted if we find a way to bring it back to market. While we are still approved in Canada, our market penetration was not big enough at the time of the FDA's request to make up the volume needed to make the product viable. We are looking for an entity with deeper pockets and resources than ours who wants to pick up where we left off. If you or an entity you know of has an interest we'd be happy to talk.

Thank you again.

Sincerely,
Steve Cohen
Leib Research
scohen@leib.com
201-785-9419-T
201-825-6998-F

So in the government's valiant effort to protect us, a great product is off the market because they didn't have the money to spend on "clinical trials" to prove that the product "stops bleeds fast".

Well, see, if it didn't, you'd buy it once, it wouldn't work, and you wouldn't buy it again. Plus word would get around, and people wouldn't buy it anymore, and the product would die.  This is the way it's supposed to work.

Fact of the matter is, I used it, and it worked great on me.  It worked great on my wife.  And I imagine it worked great on just about everbody else who ever used it.

Thus the FDA squelches new products, and keeps competition down for up and comer competitors.  It probably keeps other people from even trying because of superfluous and expensive regulation.  It costs jobs.  It costs competition (which leads to lower prices and better products).  And it costs jobs.

Not sayin' all regulation is bad.  But overregulation is definitely bad.  And here's a good example.