Michigan Becomes Fourth State to Adopt “Right To Try” Law

(10/17/2014) Right To Try gives terminally ill patients the right to try investigational medicines that have passed the first phase of FDA approval but still may be years away from reaching pharmacy shelves.

“Terminally ill people don’t have time to wait for new drugs to make their way through the decade-long approval process. Right To Try lets patients work directly with their doctors to access promising investigational medicines now,” said Darcy Olsen, President of the Goldwater Institute.

Right To Try passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in both the Michigan House and Senate. 

Right To Try is already law in Colorado, Louisiana, and Missouri, where it passed with unanimous bipartisan support in all three states. Arizona voters will vote on the measure in the November election. The Goldwater Institute is leading this nationwide effort.

The FDA has a process that allows people to seek permission to access investigational medicines. This “Compassionate Use” process takes more than 100 hours of paperwork and months to navigate, and less than 1,000 people annually get FDA compassionate use approval. Sadly, thousands of Americans are dying each year, without access to potentially life-saving medications.

“Terminal patients shouldn’t have to ask the government for permission to try to save their own lives,” said Olsen. “They should be able to work with their doctors directly to decide what potential treatments they are willing to try.”

Right To Try has been featured on CNN, Fox News, Good Morning America, NPR’s Diane Rehm show, and endorsed by several newspapers around the country, including the USA Today.                            

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