[HN] I am dying of squamous cell carcinoma, and potential treatments are out of reach
[HN] I am dying of squamous cell carcinoma, and potential treatments are out of reach
Alex Tabarrok writes about how “when the FDA fails to approve a good drug, people die but the bodies are buried in an invisible graveyard.” I’d like to make that graveyard a littl…
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tldr: author is plainly dying, but can’t try risky new treatments because they might… harm his dying body(!?) and the poor widdle FDA might wook bad.
We need to have a much stronger “right to try” presumption: “When Dying Patients Want Unproven Drugs,” we should let those patients try. I have weeks to months left; let’s try whatever there is to try, and advance medicine along the way. The “right to try” is part of fundamental freedom—and this is particularly true for palliative-stage patients without a route to a cure anyway. They are risking essentially nothing.