[ScottEvtuch]

That doesn't really follow. I have the legal authority to pay a junk yard to smash my car into a tiny cube, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be protected from auto body shops selling me fake repairs and non-functional parts.

[Empact]

Are we making a good trade-off if that protection means preventing lifesaving treatments from reaching the market for decades or more? Does the risk the part might not work somehow justify the loss of life due to the absence of a lifesaving treatment?

Wouldn’t we learn a lot more about the effects of these experimental treatments if we allowed the willing to take them voluntarily?

[idopmstuff]

> Wouldn’t we learn a lot more about the effects of these experimental treatments if we allowed the willing to take them voluntarily?

In the case of life-extension treatments, no - we would learn much less if we allowed people to give them to their pets voluntarily.

The problem is that what you're testing for is very difficult to measure, so you need a well-run study like the one that Loyal has done here. If people just give them to their dogs without the structure of a trial, you'll never get the kind of data you need to conclusive prove life-extending effects, and because companies can now sell without such a trial, you eliminate the incentives to invest the time, money and effort into that kind of a trial.

[fallingknife]

And body shops don't have to go through a years long and multiple million dollar certification process. They can open up pretty much with no oversight and you are free to sue if they rip you off. Sounds like this model would work just fine for dog medicine too.