Learn about the alarming and controversial drug access legislation known as “Right to Try.”
Some breast cancer patients seek experimental drugs and treatments when they’ve exhausted conventional options. Clinical trials are one way to access new treatments, but sometimes there can be barriers due to geography or eligibility requirements.
The phrase “Right to Try” may sound great because the legislation is pitched as breaking down “barriers” for the terminally ill. But in actuality Right to Try would make it easier for companies to exploit desperate patients by charging as much as they want for drugs that may actually hasten their death—while also depriving others from learning whether a drug is effective or not. Plus, patients can already access experimental drugs quickly through an existing FDA program. The truth is Right to Try laws are really false hope laws and—making things worse, not better.
Learn more about what the passage of federal legislation could mean for patient safety, the FDA’s authority to regulate drugs in development, and how it all affects you. Our featured speakers include Alison Bateman-House, MPH, PhD, a medical ethicist with New York University’s School of Medicine, and Erica Lessem, MPH, Deputy Executive Director with the Treatment Action Group, a New York-based patient advocacy nonprofit. Both women bring extensive public health knowledge and expertise on access to experimental drugs and treatments.