Trump signs bill to give patients right to try drugs
BMJ 2018; 361 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k2429 (Published 31 May 2018) Cite this as: BMJ 2018;361:k2429- Owen Dyer
- Montreal
The US Congress has passed a controversial bill that effectively ends the Food and Drug Administration’s control over access to unapproved drugs sought by patients who believe that they have run out of other options.1
President Donald Trump signed the bill on 30 May. A few days earlier he said that it “gives people hope . . . They won’t have to fly to Africa, they won’t have to fly to South America, they won’t have to fly to Europe.”
Trump misrepresented the current situation, saying that though many “amazing drugs” were awaiting FDA approval “these people had no access, they had no access at all to getting into that pipeline.” In fact the FDA approves over 99% of expanded access requests for experimental drugs and has been doing so for at least 10 years. …
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