The US already has that situation in the supplements industry and while heavily-advertised weight-loss/muscle/hair supplements are annoying, it's not that bad. The cost of not getting valuable drugs is underestimated since people only hear about it in rare cases such as this one, whereas dangerous treatments generate a lot of media coverage.
Right, weight loss supplements are OK because hypertension and cardiomyopathy (along with the occasional sudden death) are no problem? At the end of the day, the FDA needs to carefully regulate the market not because dumb people need them to, but because smart people such as most HNers do.
