New at Reason

March 2, 2007

Ronald Bailey talks to people who want to battle the government to get the cancer drugs they need.

Comments

|3.2.07 @ 10:49AM|#

FTA:

"Drug companies will be hard pressed to provide these drugs unless they are provided some protection from legal attacks."

But I thought that the only thing keeping companies from slinging snake oil everywhere was the FDA! You mean to say that there is actually some mechanism that would provide a disincentive to distributing untested and possibly harmful drugs, even without the FDA? I'm totally shocked.

|3.2.07 @ 12:39PM|#

"I doubt that most people thought that they had a constitutional right to buy investigational drugs," said Cooper. "It's a wholly new, unheard of right with no antecedents in Anglo-American law."

In 'A Letter Concerning Tolerance', John Locke argued that government laws on religion are even more rediculus than government laws on health would be. In his words, "Let us suppose, however, that some prince were desirous to force his subjects to accumulate riches, or to preserve the health and strength of their bodies. Shall it be provided by law that they must consult none but Roman physicians, and shall every one be bound to live according to their prescriptions? What, shall no potion, no broth, be taken, but what is prepared either in the Vatican, suppose, or in a Geneva shop?"

The right to medical choice was so engrained in English common law that violating became the reductio ad absurdum when arguing for other rights.

Larry A|3.2.07 @ 1:25PM|#

"I doubt that most people thought that they had a constitutional right to buy investigational drugs," said Cooper. "It's a wholly new, unheard of right with no antecedents in Anglo-American law."

I have a right to do anything I want to until the government has sufficient reason and authority to pass a law against it. The Constitution is a limit on government, not on individuals. Where in that document does it give government the authority to regulate the sale of drugs?

And it's a short step from wondering (for our own good) if we have a right to buy drugs to wondering whether we have a right to refuse them.

|3.2.07 @ 8:06PM|#

Lary,

Good point.