Healthy Skepticism Library item: 17768

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Publication type: Journal Article

Iheanacho I
Drug regulation: a sometimes unhealthy coalition
BMJ 2010 May 19; 340:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/340/may19_2/c2613

Abstract:

Mutual respect, tolerance, understanding, and support-these hallmarks of successful partnership will be sorely needed by the parties making up the United Kingdom’s brand new coalition government, not least because it’s 65 years since the last such arrangement ended in the Westminster parliament. In the meantime the politicians and the electorate have got used to the more adversarial approach in which general elections deliver undivided power to clear winners and knockout blows to the rest.
So, for lessons about how large coalitions work (or fail) where can we turn? Yes, there are other European countries and, at home, recent experience in the devolved Scottish and Welsh administrations. But useful examples also come from outside politics, including one so entrenched and dominant that it’s generally not recognised as a coalition at all.

Regulation of drugs in the European Union (and elsewhere) relies, in effect, on a coalition between the pharmaceutical industry and . . .