Letting people do what they want as long as they don't hurt anyone else is a good thing.

news @ nature.com - Cancer patients opt for unapproved drug - Internet trade pre-empts clinical trial.

This seems like a really interesting notion. What is the issue with allowing terminally ill patients to experiment on themselves? If the information that they share as to the results of their treatment it totally open and I think that we could save a lot of lives faster.

The other option is to force these people to not be able to take a chance that may save their lives when they have no other chances left. If we could open up the clinical trial system to something like this we would more rapidly find the cure for diseases.

I think that this comes down to my core Libertarian Philosophy: "Letting people do what they want as long as they don't hurt anyone else is a good thing."™


Why?

Well as long as it can be agreed that a treatment does not pose a risk to other people and the patient understands the risks to themselves, increasing the sample size and more rapidly undertaking clinical trials will lead to a better knowledge of how the drug is going to perform.

Forcing the drug to go through several stages and a long lengthy trial and review process that cost millions and millions of dollars is not going to do anything to ensure the safety of the drug above and beyond a well diversified cheap process without so much government regulation.

As long as the information that is garnered from a distributed clinical trial is shared openly then any negative side-effects will be rapidly uncovered and fully disclosed. Patients and their doctors could then decide impartially how to proceed with treatment. When a doctor recommends a treatment a patient could go the neutrally controlled site and read about it's effects.