There's an old joke about a vaudeville entertainer who, in the middle of his act, drops dead of a heart attack. The emcee comes on to announce that the gentleman has died, at which point a voice calls out from the audience "give him some chicken soup!"
The emcee replies "he's dead, madam, what good could that possibly do?" To which the matron sensibly responds "what harm?"
One might address that same question to the notion that terminally ill patients should have access to experimental treatments, specifically those under review by the FDA (official motto: "We're working on it! Really!"). The argument goes "they're dying anyway, what's the downside?"
Not entirely unreasonable.
But the U.S. Court of Appeals recently gave an equally reasonable response: "their deaths can certainly be hastened by the use of a potentially toxic drug with no proven therapeutic benefit."
Hard to argue with that, either.
From a purely political standpoint, the result was intriguing; it "cut across party lines, with conservative and liberal judges taking both sides of the dispute."
If you're interested, the full text of the decision is here.
Of course, insurance plans typically exclude experimental meds, anyway, but that may be circumvented via a Health Savings Account (part of that "consumer empowerment" mantra, of course).
We do live in interesting times.
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