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Comment by msla | Hacker News Reader

Right to try is a cruel scam:

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-cruel-sham-of-right-to-...

> So-called “right-to-try” is a cruel sham that holds out the false hope of survival to terminally ill patients and their families. In return, all they have to give up is patient protections and agree to pay to be guinea pigs to test a drug company’s product. The product of an ideology that uses the terminally ill as shields to hide the ideological motives behind the law, which are to hobble the FDA, right-to-try is a terrible idea.

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Wild to say this to someone with everything to gain and little to lose. What is the terrible fate you're protecting terminally ill patients from? Is it worse than death?

There are things worse than death. And then there are things that are bad when added to deaths. In the first category might be "scammers who absorb so much cash that they prevent real cures from being researched". In the second might be "people who squander their family's financial future on magic beans in futile attempt to live, but die anyway".

No one would opt into volunteer to be in the second group. But, I can see a lot of, e.g. 50-year-olds, taking a risk thinking they can refill the college-education funds and retirement funds by just working longer than they intended.

I would imagine when dying one of the comforting thoughts is that your estate will continue being able to care for loved ones after you are gone.

I mean, end of life medical care is already incredibly expensive with very, very little benefit in terms of QALYs saved. We do it anyway. I fail to see how this is different, let people fight to live.

You're displaying a serious lack of reading comprehension. End of life care provided by palliative specialists is completely different to "scammers who absorb so much cash that they prevent real cures from being researched" and "people who squander their family's financial future on magic beans in futile attempt to live, but die anyway".

No one is arguing people shouldn't be able to fight to live. In fact, the post you are responding to was only talking about if things are "worse than death".

But in general for the larger point, we should make sure that people can fight to live, but that assholes aren't stealing from them by selling magic beans.

> Is it worse than death?

Sure, why couldn't it be? Maybe it has severe, painful side effects. There's a reason many people with stage 4 cancer and low chance of survival decide not to go back on chemo. Maybe it kills them earlier than expected. Then what?

Historically, the protection was against death and destitution of the family when it was discovered that dad dying of consumption had mortgaged the house to the hilt to afford the overpriced opium.

With the modern social safety net, perhaps the traditional protections can be relaxed.

It's a way for Big Pharma to get cheap research by dangling false hope in front of the desperate.

Of course some here would view that as a positive.

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