[londons_explore]

> in short, overstate risks but let patients decide.

Then you have to battle the people selling highly marked up snake oil as an 'experimental' treatment - when every expert could tell you this treatment is already well known to be ineffective.

[lelanthran]

> Then you have to battle the people selling highly marked up snake oil as an 'experimental' treatment - when every expert could tell you this treatment is already well known to be ineffective.

Isn't that easily solved by requiring all experimental drugs and procedures to be provided free of charge with the cost footed solely by the provider?

[panabee]

indeed. this is a thorny problem with no perfect solution.

on the one hand, you may throttle promising treatments and on the other hand, you may increase useless treatments.

publishing results is one way to mitigate snake oil, though this obviously doesn't eliminate the problem.

the general framework is to maximize transparency and freedom.

letting people volunteer for national healthcare like they can for the national army increases freedom, but we must also increase transparency to combat snake oil.