Regulations: An easy way to tell whether one of Donald Trump's leadership picks is a good one is to gauge the freakout level among the left. By that measure alone, the person Trump is considering as head of the Food and Drug Administration would be an outstanding choice.
Jim O'Neill, whose name got floated this week, is a managing director at of Trump pal Peter Thiel's Mithril Capital Management. In addition to private sector experience, O'Neill worked at the Department of Health and Human Services under President Bush.
But he's also — gasp! — a libertarian!
Thus, we're seeing headlines that describe O'Neill as "an insane Silicon Valley libertarian," and that Trump is putting "eccentricity over expertise," and that O'Neill should "scare pharma."
All of these horror stories refer back to a keynote speech that O'Neill gave two years ago, in which he suggested a way to spur investment, innovation and competition in the pharmaceutical industry would be to have the FDA's role be limited to approving that a new treatment is safe.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
