'Right-to-Try' Drug Law Offers No Miracle Cure
Legislation aimed at increasing access to unproven treatments could create false hope in desperate patients and bankroll iffy drugs.
Regulation isn’t the biggest barrier to access.
Photographer: Richard Lautens/Toronto Star via Getty Images
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill this week that will give terminally ill patients access to unapproved experimental drugs. President Donald Trump will likely sign it into law soon.
This national “right-to-try” legislation seems like a sensible idea at first blush. Dying patients could get treatments that otherwise wouldn’t be available to them until it’s too late. But it’s far more likely that the measure will foster false hope in desperate families, while potentially saddling them with costs for drugs that aren’t likely to do much good. This explains why patient groups, past FDA commissioners, and a variety of other organizations oppose it.