California’s right-to-try law was enacted in January. It protects California doctors and hospitals who want to prescribe any medicine that has successfully made it through a Phase 1 drug trial. That’s the first stage of human testing required by the Food and Drug Administration — the sort of study that focuses merely on a drug’s safety, not its effectiveness.
Ian Calderon, a Democrat from Southern California and majority leader in the state’s Assembly, was one author of the law. He said that if he had just received a terrible diagnosis, he would want to try anything possible to live.
“My thought would be, ‘What do I have to lose?’” Calderon said. “I have an opportunity to potentially find a cure. Or at least find something that prolongs my life — find something that could help me.”
Image: via KHN – ALS patients and their families rallied for expanded access to experimental drugs in Washington, D.C. on May 11, 2015. (Courtesy of Lina Clark)
Tags: bioethics, FDA, oversight, regulation, right to try, risks, states
