Patient Access to Experimental Drugs Experimental Drugs

Patient Access to Experimental Drugs

Experimental drugs are being used in treating cancer and other life-threatening diseases in the hopes that effective cures and treatments can be identified. There are however, ethical questions relating to the use of experimental drugs and this work seeks to answer the question that asks whether patients should have access to experimental drugs and to answer why or why they should not have this access.

Experimental Drugs

Experimental drugs have carved inroads to treating cancer patients and most recently; this has been reported in the form of a drug that serves to "neutralize two mechanisms cancers need to survive." (Coghlan, 2012) The new drug is Cabozantinib. This drug is reported by one individual interviewed in this study to have been used by a family member who died while taking the drug for non-small cell carcinoma in the form of lung cancer. When asked the question of how this individual feels about the ethics of the use of this drug which played a part in the death of a family member, the individual stated that she feels that it is not ethically wrong because the drug is now advancing in treating cancer and that was the reason the family member participation in the Mayo Clinic trial of this drug in 2001[footnoteRef:1] however, there are others who disagree with this stance. [1: Anonymous Interviewee 28 Mar 2012]

II. Examination of Ethics in Experimental Drug Use

Ethics are in the form of both 'normative' ethics and 'nonnormative ethics' and it is reported that nonnormative ethics are inclusive of: (1) descriptive ethics -- or the factual investigation of moral conduct and beliefs, which makes use of scientific techniques to study how individuals reason and act. (Beauchamp and Childress, 2001, paraphrased); and (2) metaethics -- involves the analysis of the "language, concepts and methods of reasoning in ethics…[and] addresses the meanings of ethical terms such as 'right', 'obligation', 'virtue', 'justification, 'morality', and 'responsibility'." (Beauchamp and Childress, 2001, p.2)

III. Defining Ethics

In the most familiar definition morality makes reference to that which is 'right and wrong' concerning the conduct of human beings that are accepted on such a wide basis that they serve to formulate a social consensus that is stable in nature that includes standards of conduct along with principles of morality as well as rules, rights and virtues of the individual and the society at large. The question of ethics then is derived from that which is deemed as socially acceptable, normal and agreed upon within the society.

IV. Experimental Drug Use

Experimental drug use has a long history in terms of its use for indeed are not most drugs experimental when first introduced for use? Consider the use of the polio vaccination when it was new and the use of a myriad of other vaccinations and treatments. It is impossible to know if experimental drugs are effective until they are used experimentally. That is simply part of the process of identifying effective drugs and treatment options and part of the process of identification of these drugs that there is no way whatsoever to eliminate. The autonomy of the individual must be considered in the use of experimental drugs and specifically in the case of those who do not have the power to speak for themselves such as in the case of infants, very young children, and elderly individuals. One would however tend to think that; in the case of the individual who is of a consenting age and who understands the risks of the use of experimental drugs but who desires that the experimental drug be administered to them despite the inherent risks that there should be no presentation of any type of ethical dilemma since the adult individual has the right to participate in such experimental treatments if they so choose. This is just not necessarily true. For example, consider the instance where babies in Latin America were given a placebo rather than a proven lung therapy for premature babies because researchers wanted to test an experimental drug. This study was stated to be "unethical and exploitive" and such that result in "the preventable deaths of at least a dozen infants suffering respiratory distress syndrome." (Neergard, 2012) The Supreme Court handed down a decision on the use of experimental drugs in treating terminal illness in 2008 and stated as follows: "Substantially unfettered access to experimental medications would severely undermine the ability to conduct rigorous controlled trials. Patients would be much less willing to enter a double blinded study if they could get access to the experimental agent by another route." (Sabin, 2008)