Replies to post #50760 on Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

Re: “Dangerous and radical”

>I respectfully suggest you should let your readers, and perhaps higher authority, decide who, and what, deserves those strong words.<

LOL—if readers don’t agree with my characterization, that’s their prerogative.

Read #msg-19394727 with respect to GNTA’s Genasense. There’s more than enough ammunition in the excerpt there to label the Abigail Alliance as dangerous and radical, IMO.

[zipjet]

Thank you north and DD for drawing my attention to the "dangerous and radical" AA and the court decision.

I read the Court of Appeals decision and dissents. I confess that I am a lawyer too.

I was surprised at how easily the majority was able to determine that preserving one's life was not a fundamental right worthy of strict scrutiny. It also surprised me that drugs which the FDA approves for human testing are not safe enough for a desperate terminally ill person even when he has no other alternative and wishes to use the drug under his doctors supervision.

I am not competent to judge the merit of the refined constitutional arguments that were made.

I do know that if my wife or daughter needed some drug that was not yet approved to save their life - I would want them to have that chance however slim. Having said that, how could I deny the same to your wife, child or anyone entitled to the protection of the US Constitution.

As a teenager my favorite Aunt came down with breast cancer. She consulted with my father a fine physician and had the best care available at the time. But the cancer spread despite the treatments. Aunt Kelly was a wealthy woman and wanted to fight for her life. So she went to Switzerland to try experimental treatments. My father held little hope for the treatments but supported her desire to try. She returned in time to die with her family around her.

If wanting people to have a chance to live makes me dangerous and radical - so be it. :-) It would be the first time I have been called a radical. LOL

I do have some practical reservations in how the objectives of AA can be achieved. First, the patient should be required to bear the full cost of the treatments, including profit to the company providing the drug. Second, the treatment of AA cases must NOT interfere with the drug supplies necessary to complete clinical trials.

Considering our current Supreme Court, I doubt they will take the case and suspect that if they do, they will affirm the Court of Apeals.

Dangerously and radically yours,

ij :-)

[iwfal]

North - Having read the opinion and the dissent (thanks) I am once again impressed by how much the legal system distorts the real issue.

E.g. The Abigail Alliance, despite some talk of systems where access would be given only to those ineligible for the trial (so trials could continue to enroll and be run), put forth a blanket right to access after ph 1. This would make it impossible to run a randomized trial which would (guaranteed!!) result in a lot more early deaths than would be prevented by early access. This is really about the rights of the many (in the future) vs the rights of the few (here and now).

Presumably AA made this change (to be about universal access) because they thought their strongest case lay in doing this (making it about right life) - but had they won they would have killed more people than they saved. Perversely they appear to have been fighting the battle they could 'win' (legally) even if it really meant losing their cause.

And given that without doubt the dissenting opinion was much less forced than the majority opinion I would guess that the judges knew that the battle was the wrong one.

?