This is already the case with the FDA 1962 "safe effective" regulations. There is little downside to the FDA wanting to take no risks whatsoever in approving a drug, but a huge downside to the regulators if they approve a drug that turns out to have a fault in it.
The result is that developing new drugs got enormously more expensive, far fewer new drugs get developed, long delays in effective treatments getting approved, diseases that don't affect large numbers of people don't get cures developed, etc.
The net result was a negative for patients.
This was all discussed in "Regulation of Pharmaceutical Innovation" by Sam Peltzman.
There have been a lot of deadly aviation crashes due to mistakes, false assumptions, oversights, incompetence, human failings, etc. But somehow we've wound up with incredibly safe airline travel. Millions of flights with no incident. Do we really want to start jailing people now? What improvements will we forsake if we give airframe makers powerful incentives to hide mistakes? or simply avoid making improvements to safety, because who wants to risk jail for making a mistake?
The result is that developing new drugs got enormously more expensive, far fewer new drugs get developed, long delays in effective treatments getting approved, diseases that don't affect large numbers of people don't get cures developed, etc.
The net result was a negative for patients.
This was all discussed in "Regulation of Pharmaceutical Innovation" by Sam Peltzman.
There have been a lot of deadly aviation crashes due to mistakes, false assumptions, oversights, incompetence, human failings, etc. But somehow we've wound up with incredibly safe airline travel. Millions of flights with no incident. Do we really want to start jailing people now? What improvements will we forsake if we give airframe makers powerful incentives to hide mistakes? or simply avoid making improvements to safety, because who wants to risk jail for making a mistake?