Bill should be passed allowing terminally ill access to experimental drugs, journal op-ed states

The case of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), who has been diagnosed with brain cancer, is "identical from a regulatory standpoint to the plight of hundreds of thousands of other Americans" and "shouts to the heavens the humane necessity of urgent reform in the drug approval process to make it work better for people who have serious and terminal diseases," according to a Wall Street Journal opinion piece by Steven Walker and Ronald Trowbridge, chief adviser and adjunct scholar, respectively, of the Abigail Alliance for Better Access to Developmental Drugs.

According to the authors, "There are many promising new cancer treatments in the pipeline, but under current FDA regulations, almost no one gains access to them." However, the Access, Compassion, Care and Ethics for Seriously Ill Patients Act (S 3064) sponsored by Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.) gives Congress the "opportunity to address this problem," Walker and Trowbridge write. Brownback at a press conference said the bill would allow "terminally ill patients whose medical needs are unmet by currently available options [to] be granted access to promising, investigational treatments."

Walker and Trowbridge write that the bill would "break the regulatory logjam" that causes "good cancer drugs" to be "held up behind a one-size-fits-all regulatory wall." They state, "Our national shame is that humane access to effective drugs is not available to all with terminal illness" (Walker/Trowbridge, Wall Street Journal, 6/11).