You are exactly correct. Without the continual "protection" of our regulatory overseers drugs and nutraceuticals could advance at speeds similar to those seen in the electronics industry (or space industry, if you are watching closely).
Modern communications and data processing, including statistical mathematics, makes it possible to track outcome patterns in a way that once was possible only in carefully controlled environments with known in advance conditions imposed on every participant.
Things change if you let them. But in medicine we make sure there are so many barriers that progress is very difficult.
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