Abstract
Pharmaceutical paternalism is the normative stance upheld by pharmaceutical regulatory
agencies like the US Food and Drug Administration. These agencies prevent patients
from accessing treatments declared safe and ineffective for the patient’s good without
their consent. Libertarian critics of the FDA have shown a number of significant flaws in
regulatory paternalism. Against these objections, I will argue that, in order to make an
informed decision about treatments, a libertarian patient should request full disclosure of
the uncertainty about an experimental treatment. But pharmaceutical markets, on their
own, are not a reliable source of information about such uncertainty. And companies have
the power to capture any independent expert who may assess it. Therefore, the libertarian
is better off deferring on an independent regulatory body the assessment of the
pharmaceutical risks, constraining access to treatments until tested.