Wyoming Governor Matt Mead Signs Right To Try Into Law

Cheyenne—Yesterday Wyoming Governor Matt Mead (R) signed Senate File 3—the Wyoming Right To Try Act—into law. The Wyoming House and Senate passed the bill in February with a near unanimous bipartisan support. This makes Wyoming the sixth state in the country to adopt Right To Try.

“We all know the pain of losing someone we love to a terminal illness,” said Darcy Olsen, the president of the Goldwater Institute, the group leading the national, bipartisan Right To Try effort.  “If you know there’s a treatment that is helping people survive, who is anyone to say ‘No; you don’t have the right to try to save your own life or to save your child’s life’? Of course you do. Of course people should have the right to  try promising medicines when they are fighting for their lives.”

Right To Try allows terminally ill Americans to try investigational treatments that have passed Phase 1 of the FDA approval process but are not yet on pharmacy shelves. Right To Try expands access to potentially life-saving treatments years before patients would normally be able to access them.

Last year four states adopted Right To Try laws with overwhelming bipartisan support: Colorado, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri. Arizona voters passed the law by ballot in November with 78 percent. Twenty-eight states in addition to Wyoming are considering the law this year. Twelve of those states have already passed the law through one chamber of their Legislature since January 1. Lawmakers in Arkansas, South Dakota, and Virginia have sent Right To Try to their governors for signature.

The FDA has a process that allows individual patients to ask permission to access investigational medicines, but fewer than 1,000 people a year receive help. Others die while waiting on their approval. The FDA recently announced plans to shorten the application form. “A simpler form is lipstick on a pig, window dressing for an inhumane system that prevents the vast majority of Americans with terminal illnesses from accessing promising investigational treatments. Compassionate use should be the rule for everyone, not the exception,” said Olsen.

The New York Times and Wall Street Journal have both editorialized that the Right To Try movement is prompting long overdue change at the FDA.

Right To Try is limited to patients with a terminal disease that have exhausted all conventional treatment options and cannot enroll in a clinical trial. All medications available under the law must have successfully completed basic safety testing and be part of the FDA’s on-going approval process.

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About the Goldwater Institute

The Goldwater Institute drives results by working daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and strengthen the freedom guaranteed to all Americans in the constitutions of the United States and all 50 states. With the blessing of its namesake, the Goldwater Institute opened in 1988. Its early years focused on defending liberty in Barry Goldwater’s home state of Arizona. Today, the Goldwater Institute is a national leader for constitutionally limited government respected by the left and right for its adherence to principle and real world impact. No less a liberal icon than the New York Times calls the Goldwater Institute a “watchdog for conservative ideals” that plays an “outsize role” in American political life.