Terminally Ill Patients Do Not Have a Fundament Right to Access Investigational Medications
Kristal Ozmun,Terminall Ill Patients Do Not Have a Fundamental Due Process Right of Access to Investigational Medications That Have Passed Only Phase 1 of the FDA’s Comprehensive Drug Regulation Scheme — Abigail Alliance for Better Access to Developmental Drugs v. Eschenbach, 495 F.3d 695 (D.C. Cir. 2007), 4 J. Health & Biomedical L. 227 (2008)
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Abigail Alliance v. Eschenbach presented the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia with the opportunity to ascertain another fundamental right under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Abigail Alliance argued that, under the United States Constitution, mentally competent, terminally ill patients with no other approved treatment options available have a fundamental right to experimental drugs that have passed Phase 1 of clinical testing. The Court of Appeals, however, declined to expand the realm of fundamental rights, concluding that the proposed right to use of investigational drugs could not satisfy the substantive due process analysis.