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A rising death toll, mass panic, scary mortality rate—what could possibly be good about the out-of-control epidemic? It may accelerate the adoption of laws giving patients more power. Ebola’s arrival and seeming spread in America is causing mass panic, tasteless Internet jokes, and incredibly poorly timed magazine covers. Can anything good come out of the […]

In November, Arizona voters will decide whether terminally ill patients should be allowed to take drugs that are in the early stages of testing but haven’t yet been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Similar “right to try” laws have been enacted this year in Colorado, Louisiana, and Missouri. The laws aren’t a […]

The deadly Ebola outbreak spreading through Africa is so extreme, it is driving health officials to do something that they would instinctively resist in normal circumstances: Subject patients to unproven experimental drugs. The drugs are risky. Some have not even been tested on humans. Even so, a World Health Organization ethics committee just declared such […]

As concerns over the devastating Ebola outbreak in Western Africa have spread across the world this week, one story continues to be underplayed amidst the outpouring of alarming reports. There was a non-FDA-approved antidote flown into Liberia that is being credited with the recoveries of the two infected U.S. missionaries—but that, under current standards, may […]

Arizona could becomethe latest state to allow those who are terminally ill to try experimental treatment not yet approved by the FDA. This “right to try” ballot initiative will be put before voters in November. If passed, Arizona would join Colorado, Louisiana and Missouri in allowing the practice, which has been compared to the film […]

Darcy Olsen, president of the Arizona-based Goldwater Institute, and Richard Garr, president ofNeuralstem, a biotech company, wrote “Right to Try experimental drugs” in USA Today (5/28/2014). They pointed out that “this year, more than 5,000 Americans will lose their battle with ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.” Up until recently, there was no medicine […]

A new movement aims to make experimental drugs available to the terminally ill. They have to share more. That’s the general opinion about the rich these days, and it seems to apply in special force when it comes to a certain kind of rich: the rich involved in medical innovation. Sometimes the issue is simply […]

Arizona voters this fall will be asked to decide whether terminally-ill patients should have access to experimental drugs that have not yet been fully reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration. Pushed by the Goldwater Institute, the ballot measure in Arizona, along with bills in Colorado, Louisiana and Missouri, would give patients and their doctors […]

Should people fighting for their lives have to battle red tape? That’s the question lawmakers are considering in four states where the “Right to Try” act is moving forward – proposed legislation aimed at giving terminally ill people access to experimental, but potentially life-saving, drugs before they have FDA approval. Americans like Keith Knapp, of […]