[sekm]

> It's a sad story, but experimentation is necessary to find effective treatments. If you're like many people on HN, you'll agree that terminally ill people should be able to commit suicide. If you grant that, why not let them consent to experimental treatments?

While experimentation is a necessity - so are ethics. Apparently they did not have the required approval to conduct the experiments.

I've heard that if you sign a contract under the threat of death that it is not legally binding. Now I know the doctors aren't making the threat, but I think the situation is remarkably similar, right?

[uvdiv]

I've heard that if you sign a contract under the threat of death that it is not legally binding. Now I know the doctors aren't making the threat, but I think the situation is remarkably similar, right?

No, they're polar opposites. If I hold a gun to your head and demand you do something, I am (i) forcing you to do something that is (ii) against your interests. If you're sick and I offer you an experimental treatment, I am (i) not-forcing you to do something that (ii) is in your interests and benefit. It could maybe save your life. A cancer patient is not legally incapacitated like a child; she has the ability and right to make decisions influencing her own life and death.

[sekm]

> she has the ability and right to make decisions influencing her own life and death.

True, but at the end of the day her decision is likely to rest on the advice given to her from an authority. If the doctor isn't following the proposed rules, then it makes the entire thing a fiasco. I guess I should be stressing how important the doctor's role is in the decision process of the patient.

Just a side note, wouldn't the polar opposite of my mentioned case, be where a person tells another person that if they sign a contract then they will kill them?

[pmiller2]

>I've heard that if you sign a contract under the threat of death that it is not legally binding. Now I know the doctors aren't making the threat, but I think the situation is remarkably similar, right?

No, duress and desperation are distinctly different things.

If it was me looking at a 91% chance of not being here in two years, I think I'd be inclined to seek out alternative and experimental treatments. When it's better than 10:1 odds against being able to see my niece and nephews grow up, I think I'd even consider intentionally infecting myself with bacteria to get that chance. And, I'm saying that now, as a healthy, youngish guy, so I can only imagine what I'd be thinking if I actually had a GBM growing inside me.