There is ongoing discussion in the medical community and among politicians about when and whether terminally ill patients can receive access to medicines not approved by regulators. With the support of the “right to try” movement, 37 states—and recently, the U.S. Senate—have passed laws aimed at providing easier access to experimental treatments that have undergone only the most rudimentary human testing.
The “right to try” website, operated by the libertarian Goldwater Institute, seeks to allow “terminally ill Americans to try medicines that have passed Phase 1 of the FDA approval process and remain in clinical trials but are not yet on pharmacy shelves. . . [and] expands access to potentially life-saving treatments years before patients would normally be able to access them.”
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