On Monday, December 15, 2003, at 10:52 AM, Jerry Bromenshenk wrote:

> As per the FDA registration requirements, I would agree with Curtis, it
> would appear that "there is NO COST to register".

I just took a short trip to Google on this topic, and I was appalled
that the sites that charge for registration were listed before the
official FDA site.  Of course they were . . . they paid for it.  I also
took a quick trip to the FDA site and was impressed by how well
designed it is and how carefully and clearly they describe the
registration process.

(I'm not talking about the issue of whether you must register.  The
language of the law is outside the control of the people who designed
the web site.  I do think that the FDA web site is very well done,
given that they had to work with a typical piece of legislation passed
by the US Congress, which is always difficult to interpret.)

It would be one thing if these third-party web sites were actually
adding value . . . but their fees ($200-$500) are way out of proportion
to any value that they could add.  The bottom line is that the
owner/manager of the business has to gather certain information and
provide it to the FDA.  The time spent is in the gathering process, and
little time is saved by using the third-party site, as opposed to the
no-charge FDA site.

I'm actually a little surprised that the FDA would allow people to make
money fronting a service that is free.  I guess that throttling private
enterprise is a slippery slope, best not started down,

Anyone remember the first Usenet spam -- it was a service to apply for
a green card in a free lottery.  These web sites trying to extract
money for a free service bring back that memory.

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