The FDA has a program called “compassionate use,” which allows terminal patients to use potentially lifesaving treatments that are undergoing safety and efficacy testing, but have not yet received final FDA approval. But the reality is that fewer than 1 percent of terminally ill patients are ever able to take advantage of the compassionate use exception.
More than half a million patients have died of cancer alone in the past year — most without access to the more than 700 new treatments already under consideration. Countless more suffer and die from terminal illnesses with no FDA-approved cure, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, (commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease), Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and Alzheimer’s. But there are promising treatments for them already in the FDA’s pipeline.
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