| > This sounds like a recipe for killing people. Do you know what else sounds like a recipe for killing people? Not allowing people to access therapeutics that might save their life because it hasn't yet gone through regulatory approval yet for whatever reason (delays, too expensive to submit), etc. > There's very little that's approved by a non-US body and approved by the EU or non-OECD body that warrants clinical use, and if it is it gets reviewed quickly LOL. What are you talking about. There are so many examples. One of the most tragic is amisulpride. Amisulpride is an antipsychotic medication used to treat schizophrenia and other psychiatric conditions. Some key notes about its regulatory status: - Amisulpride was first approved in France in the 1980s and is widely used in Europe. - It was never approved by the FDA for use in the United States, and at this point there's not organization that can afford to go through the approval process because there's no patent. - The reason often cited is that the manufacturer did not apply for approval with the FDA. It was likely not considered commercially viable for the US market at the time. - Amisulpride is believed to have comparable efficacy to other second-generation antipsychotics like olanzapine and risperidone, but with a lower side effect burden according to some studies. - In Europe, amisulpride is considered a first-line treatment option for schizophrenia, but American psychiatrists do not have access to it. According to some sources, it is literally recommended as the best antipsychotic in other countries. |
Should we at least demand more specific criteria than "X _might_ save their life", like threshold of suggestive evidence? There will always be lots of stuff that hasn't been closely studied, the effects of which we can only partially describe. You could isolate any new molecule from some previously unknown bacterium and say it "might" be a treatment for any disease, but that's just a statement of our own ignorance right?
If we say, "so long as it hasn't been conclusively shown to _not_ beneficial for the patient's disease, then it _might_ help them, so it should be fair game", then that seems to open the door to quacks selling snake oil to desperate dying people and their families. And of the unenumerable list of potential "it might work because we haven't yet shown that it doesn't" chemicals, why shouldn't unethical practices pick the most expensive options available?
"Of course you must understand there can be no guarantees with any treatment, and this may be a long shot, and precisely because of the lack of prior studies we cannot even give you any efficacy numbers. But we're at the cutting edge of medical science! Please make out a check for $500k and sign this waver and we can begin treatment as soon as possible."