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news.A US appeals court has ruled that terminally ill patients do not have a constitutional right to experimental drugs that have not been approved by regulators.
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Two patient advocacy groups have sued the FDA, the body in charge of drug approval which can involve years of testing. The groups are seeking access for terminally ill patients to drugs that have undergone preliminary trials which can involve 20 to 80 people.
Writing for the majority, Judge Thomas Griffith commented: “The FDA’s policy of limiting access to investigational drugs is rationally related to the legitimate state interest of protecting patients, including the terminally ill, from potentially unsafe drugs with unknown therapeutic effects.”
One of the groups, the Abigail Alliance for Better Access to Developmental Drugs, filed the case against the FDA back in 2003. The group was founded by a man whose daughter was denied access to experimental drugs and died of cancer in 2001.
The 8-2 ruling reversed a court ruling made in 2006 which overturned a 2004 district court decision to throw out the case.