Comment by nine_k
3 years ago
I'd say that people should be allowed to try whatever treatments they agree to have, in order to save their lives, and also in other cases. One cannot say with a straight face that a woman has sovereignty over her body and thus contraception and abortions should not be banned, and preclude that same woman from getting a treatment that can possibly save her life but has not been approved yet.
My friends mom bought a fancy light for 2000€ that was supposed to cure her cancer. Spoiler: it did not.
Now, that wasn't in the US, and I'm pretty sure the quack device wasn't approved as a medical device. But the fact is that fraudsters will sell their fake medical products to desperate patients who have nothing left to try. These people should rot in jail.
I'm sorry to hear this.
My idea is not about quack medicine. People should be discouraged from using quack medicine, and made abundantly informed that it's guaranteed not to work, while consuming their precious time alive which other treatments might extend.
My idea is about something that has promising results in scientific trials, but may carry unknown risks, and so is not yet approved. The risks may be worth it, because the alternative is a certain and quick death.
The patients should, of course, be also abundantly informed about the risks, the odds of success, etc.
Of course, some people would do things that we would find irrational, no matter how we try to persuade them against that. This may of course be painful to see, but I don't see why should we curtail the free will of an adult in their sane mind, as long as nobody's rights are being infringed. Certain new things always look crazy even though they have merit: see vaccines, blood transfusion, etc.
C’mon, it’s extremely disingenuous to compare abortion and contraception with untested treatment.
Assisted suicide and euthanasia are better examples. If you have autonomy to die, you should have autonomy to die trying not to.
Well, those are pretty controversial topics, so I'm not sure how much the analogy helps.
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It’s unfair to call treatments untested. Medications are tested extensively. The FDA could work with sponsors to come up with a range of risk profiles and expand access.
> The FDA could work with sponsors to come up with a range of risk profiles and expand access.
They indeed do this and have various avenues for treatments to be approved on expedited timelines.
I agree: not completely untested, but not tested sufficiently to get an FDA approval. They show early promising results.
BTW people picking such experimental treatments would provide important data points.
I don't have an issue with people taking magic beans to heal themselves; it's the sellers who knowingly (whole other kettle of fish there) sell snake-oil that are the immoral ones.
If the treatment needs to be administrated by a doctor, it demands the resources of the hospital and connected system, for a novel process. It does introduce a real risk factor for the rest of the healthcare provider’s system and the other people counting on it. I don’t see the comparison you’re making at all, really - a novel treatment has completely different context from an abortion.
Talking about immunotherapies feels like oh yes of course it would be worth it…but should you also be able to print out a blog article about holistic medicine and demand the hospital follow that treatment plan for your illness? Should a person insisting their illness be treated with an untested therapy from a disreputable company get a hospital bed instead of you for the same condition because they arrived first?
IMO this seems like something where the burden on the medical system is at least as much of a factor as the risk to the patient.
If I’m terminal and my doctor and I want to try the treatment, who are the feds to tell me no?
Screw ‘em
We are all, in some sense, terminal. At what number of months or years left to live does your terminality become sufficient to let you try whatever?
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