
Under “right-to-try” law, therapy may go for $300K–with no proof it will work - dv_dt
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/06/under-right-to-try-law-therapy-may-go-for-300k-with-no-proof-it-will-work
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olliej
This is of course exactly what everyone with half a clue said would happen.

I remember multiple groups claiming the law limited the ability to make
exploitative profits from victims, yet here we have a 300k treatment. It does
not cost 300k to create the medication, we know this because the costs for the
trials would be even larger than they already are.

The simple fact is saying “limit profit” ignores the immense power of a
corporation to invent expenses (how much does IP cost?).

The reality is that this was only ever going to be used to exploit people. The
data is not useful for a trial, and because it’s not in a trial then failures
don’t get reported as part of the trial. Suddenly you can make a profit
without ever proving it does anything at all.

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pitaj
Seems like patients willing to spend $300k would probably be either willing to
try anything to save themselves or convinced of the efficacy of the drug
they're purchasing.

I see no reason to prevent patients willing to spend money to try something
from doing so.

~~~
Latty
You don't see the harm in any con man being able to put together a "therapy"
that has no chance of working and charge terminally ill people a ton of money,
wasting what little time they have, and taking their money from them?

I think the core idea of allowing people to try experimental treatments when
they are terminally ill is a good one - but without protection, it's clearly
ripe for abuse. Allowing it without any precautions in place is asking for the
most vulnerable people to get ripped off in tragic ways.

The attitude of "any chance is better than no chance" has a ring of truth to
it, but it also ignores the fact that people can pass off "no chance" as "any
chance" very easily. The fact that anyone in that situation is _very_ unlikely
to be a rational actor means that they are incredibly vulnerable to cons -
they are in a situation with an extreme power imbalance.

