This is true, though you elide the pressure in the other direction. The FDA, like every regulatory body that depends on specialized knowledge only available in the industry it's regulating, is subject to regulatory capture. It could only be trustworthy by having an antagonistic relationship with the drug industry, and that's not going to happen because those are the regulator's peers. The public is right to be suspicious of any decision favoring the industry that turns out to have been a bad one.The stated purpose of the FDA is to protect the public health. But the incentives are different.
Industry interference is a perpetual problem with regulating bodies, and the FDA is no exception. The FDA ‘Revolving Door’ Fosters Conflicts on Advisory Panels Conflicts of Interest at the F.D.A. But I wouldn't assume that the pressure is always in the opposite direction, helpfully reversing the overly conservative nature of the bureaucrats. Regulatory capture will tend to promote the interests of the most influential players. The giants in Big Pharma like Pfizer hope to make as much as they can from a new drug while patent protection applies. They can afford to wait a few years to collect. The biggest threat is not getting to market later, but that someone else will get a remedy to market first. Therefore, stifling competition is an important strategy. Maintaining high barriers to entry via an onerous approval process is a sound strategy. "If the FDA ceased to exist, the world would be a better place." I don't know if that sentence is true, but if I expressed it in a public place I would not expect to be taken seriously. But the evidence I have found points in that direction. I am sure we could find more with some effort, but so far the only downside mentioned to a lack of regulation is that a guy was permitted to sell some oil that probably did not cure any headaches. I think it's worth mentioning that he didn't wear a white lab coat; the "Rattle Snake King" had a circus act including killing a rattler and squeezing out the "oil" in front of an audience. At worst some people wasted money on snake oil when they could have gotten more relief from another treatment. Today we have an FDA to prevent charlatans from selling bogus remedies. Problem solved? Not exactly. "U.S. retail sales of homeopathic and herbal remedies reached $6.4 billion in 2012." The FDA restricts the sale of homeopathic remedies about as much as it restricts the sale of water, though this approach is being reconsidered. The current rules defer to the The Homœopathic Pharmacopœia of the United States, including the determination of which tinctures can be sold over-the-counter and which require prescription. Did you know that there are homeopathic treatments for cancer?