Quote:
Terminally ill patients have no constitutional right to gain access to experimental drugs that have yet to win federal approval, the US Supreme Court ruled Monday.
The top court refused to hear a case brought by the Abigail Alliance for Better Access to Developmental Drugs, which accuses the government's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of violating the legal rights of the patients.
As is customary when the court declines to take up a case, the nine justices gave no explanation of their reasoning.
The decision let stand an August ruling by the federal appeals court in Washington, which said the FDA was right to refuse access to drugs that have yet to go through the lengthy process of clinical trials.
"Although terminally ill patients desperately need curative treatments ... their deaths can certainly be hastened by the use of a potentially toxic drug with no proven therapeutic benefit," the appeals court had said.
Steven Walker, who co-founded the Abigail Alliance in 2001, had urged the Supreme Court to give patients suffering incurable disease a legal redress against the "unelected, tenured career bureaucrats" of the FDA.
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I think that experimental drugs are fine, as long as they are ready for human trials. The families and the patient have to be fully informed of the risks. If drugs aren't thoroughly trialled, then they will never become FDA approved. If there's a drug to potentially cure me, I'd want the option of taking it and being made aware of the risks.