There is a system by which to do so called the Right to Try act, you need to have tried all approved alternatives first and be deemed ineligible to participate in the clinical trial for the investigational treatment.
From the first post of this story it was stated chemotherapy had not been tried yet or been rejected by the clinical trials at that time.
When no comparable or satisfactory approved alternative exists, patients may receive access to investigational treatments under the Expanded Access/compassionate use program.
Determination of whether chemotherapy is a satisfactory alternative is beyond my medical scope so I won’t comment, this is sub-subspecialist expert level knowledge. To my understanding though the Moderna trials are still in phase I (I.e. no data) whereas there is data on chemo and while is not great is something, so I suspect it might be but I have no experience in making this determination.
It’s unfortunate he’s in this position. It is important to keep in mind no system is perfect and some patients will always slip through the cracks (not making a professional judgement on this case) but significantly loosening regulations with investigational therapies may also harm more patients than are slipping through.
> In a perfect world with unlimited resources, I’m sure it would be possibly to quickly assess the efficacy and safety of every new compound. Obviously, as indicated by the continued existence of cancer, this is not that world
Even when you have hundred of millions of $ patient recruitment is the rate limiting step.
From the first post of this story it was stated chemotherapy had not been tried yet or been rejected by the clinical trials at that time.
When no comparable or satisfactory approved alternative exists, patients may receive access to investigational treatments under the Expanded Access/compassionate use program.
Determination of whether chemotherapy is a satisfactory alternative is beyond my medical scope so I won’t comment, this is sub-subspecialist expert level knowledge. To my understanding though the Moderna trials are still in phase I (I.e. no data) whereas there is data on chemo and while is not great is something, so I suspect it might be but I have no experience in making this determination.
It’s unfortunate he’s in this position. It is important to keep in mind no system is perfect and some patients will always slip through the cracks (not making a professional judgement on this case) but significantly loosening regulations with investigational therapies may also harm more patients than are slipping through.
> In a perfect world with unlimited resources, I’m sure it would be possibly to quickly assess the efficacy and safety of every new compound. Obviously, as indicated by the continued existence of cancer, this is not that world
Even when you have hundred of millions of $ patient recruitment is the rate limiting step.