Comment by mustacheemperor
3 years ago
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?
It took about 40 years to find efficient ways to treat AIDS.
It took about one year to find efficient ways to treat COVID-19.
So, if you have a condition with a few years of life expectancy remaining, maybe it's worth it to wait for some promising scientific results to turn into an approved medicine that will cure you. If you have a few decades (e.g. the normal life expectancy), even more so. If you doctors give you a few months though, maybe the "try anything" approach is a better gamble.