One of the more positive measures coming from the White House and the Republican-controlled House of Representatives was the Right to Try legislation. This gives terminally patients the opportunity to experiment with drugs that could improve their conditions.
The bill was also a matter of principle: it’s your body, so you should be able to do what you want with it.
Right, Democrats?
Well, unfortunately, the measure received 259-140, which falls short of the two-thirds majority the Republicans needed to get the bill passed.
GOP lawmakers were adamant about approving the bill – just two Republicans voted againts it. It was the Democrats who were opposed to the measure.
From the Associated Press:
All but two voting Republicans backed the measure while Democrats were opposed by a margin exceeding 4-to-1.
Democrats, backed by scores of patients’ and research organizations, said the bill would achieve little since the federal Food and Drug Administration already approves 99 percent of the 1,000 requests it receives annually for an existing program that lets patients use unproven treatments. They said the proposal would create risks by rolling back the FDA’s oversight role in the process and noted that most experimental drugs don’t work.
“The last thing I want to do is give patients false hope and to put them at risk” by reducing the FDA’s powers, said Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce panel.
Critics said the measure misleadingly suggests the FDA is the bottleneck to providing the experimental treatments. They say the more common hurdle is manufacturers, which often prefer to use their limited quantities of early-stage drugs for clinical trials needed to gain final FDA approval for wide-spread sales or worry that a setback could damage the product’s marketability.
Scott Gottlieb, FDA commissioner and a Trump appointee, told Congress in October that 70 percent of the experimental drugs his agency currently lets seriously ill patients use are never approved.
Wait a minute.
But Democrats keep saying that abortion should be the law of the land because it’s “my body, my choice.” Where is the intellectual consistency and logic? It smells like hypocrisy and good old mendacity.
Can you imagine my shock at the hypocrisy?
How pathetic!!!
Opposing legislation like this because they want to “avoid giving a false hope” of successful treatment.
Just like all their gun-control proposals that give the false hope that there will be no more deaths caused by guns.
I don’t even see a value provided by the Foolish Drug Addicts. This entire entity has no reason to exist, and should be terminated quickly. The only thing they cause is delay, when treatments could be brought to market much quicker than their slow-walk process allows.
They see more value in addicting people to opioids than to allowing for one-time treatments that work without side effects.
They see more value to injecting deadly chemotherapy drugs into people with cancer, rather than allowing for less-harmful immunotherapy treatments that cause less pain and far fewer side effects.
The Foolish Drug Addicts would serve the nation much better by eliminating themselves.