Both sides now?

Interesting article in USA Today on unapproved drugs and the terminally ill:

Frustrated with the cumbersome process for obtaining experimental drugs — which requires dealing with the FDA bureaucracy as well as drugmakers and research institutions — a patient advocacy group has taken the FDA to court. The group argues that mentally competent terminally ill patients have a right to get such drugs.

Howard Fine, chief of the brain cancer branch at the National Cancer Institute, says he understands both sides of the debate over experimental drugs.

"Ethically speaking," Fine says, noting that he's talking only for himself, "who has the right to say to a patient: You have no right to try this medicine even though you're dying, even though you're well informed?"

On the other hand, he says, giving unapproved drugs to anyone who wants them would be a logistical nightmare: "Where are (drugmakers) going to send these drugs? The local doc down the street? And who's going to educate the doctor?"

Click here to read the entire article.