First US Hub For Experimental Medical Treatments Is Coming (technologyreview.com)
- Reference: 0177513753
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/05/14/2354249/first-us-hub-for-experimental-medical-treatments-is-coming
- Source link: https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/14/1116428/first-us-hub-for-experimental-medical-treatments/
> The bill, which was passed by the state legislature on April 29 and is expected to be signed by Governor Greg Gianforte, essentially expands on existing Right to Try legislation in the state. But while that law was originally designed to allow terminally ill people to access experimental drugs, the new bill was drafted and lobbied for by people interested in extending human lifespans -- a group of longevity enthusiasts that includes scientists, libertarians, and influencers. These longevity enthusiasts are hoping Montana will serve as a test bed for opening up access to experimental drugs. [...]
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> Supporters of the bill say it gives individuals the freedom to make choices about their own bodies. At the same event, bioethicist Jessica Flanigan of the University of Richmond said she was "optimistic" about the measure, because "it's great any time anybody is trying to give people back their medical autonomy." Ultimately, they hope that the new law will enable people to try unproven drugs that might help them live longer, make it easier for Americans to try experimental treatments without having to travel abroad, and potentially turn Montana into a medical tourism hub.
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> But ethicists and legal scholars aren't as optimistic. "I hate it," bioethicist Alison Bateman-House of New York University says of the bill. She and others are worried about the ethics of promoting and selling unproven treatments -- and the risks of harm should something go wrong. [...] At any rate, the clinics are coming to Montana, says [Dylan Livingston, founder and CEO of the Alliance for Longevity Initiatives]. "We have half a dozen that are interested, and maybe two or three that are definitively going to set up shop out there." He won't name names, but he says some of the interested clinicians already have clinics in the US, while others are abroad."
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> Mac Davis -- founder and CEO of Minicircle, the company that developed the controversial "anti-aging" gene therapy -- told MIT Technology Review he was "looking into it." "I think this can be an opportunity for America and Montana to really kind of corner the market when it comes to medical tourism," says Livingston. "There is no other place in the world with this sort of regulatory environment."
[1] https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/14/1116428/first-us-hub-for-experimental-medical-treatments/
Geeesh this isn't what we meant (Score:3)
When we joked about the world ending in 2025 we meant it would be because Trump starts a nuclear war not because Montana starts the zombie apocalypse!
Phase I is not enough. (Score:1)
The FDA was created to address snake oil. The rules are that you must prove efficacy(the drug does what it says it's going to do) and safety. Uncommon side effects will only rarely be found in phase I trials. The opportunity to take small studies and wildly extrapolate will be exploited to someones benefit. That someone may or may not be the patient. I hope there is at least a documentation burden that makes them keep track of side effects.
Re: (Score:2)
Then stop preventing them from testing their new drugs on dogs, cats, pigs, cows, and other animals.
Re: (Score:2)
> The FDA was created to address snake oil. The rules are that you must prove efficacy(the drug does what it says it's going to do) and safety. Uncommon side effects will only rarely be found in phase I trials. The opportunity to take small studies and wildly extrapolate will be exploited to someones benefit. That someone may or may not be the patient. I hope there is at least a documentation burden that makes them keep track of side effects.
Undortunately the ethics of the FDA died with snake oil.
(Post-COVID lawsuit-free America) ”Documentation? The fuck would I need that for?”
Is it going to be called The Darwin Clinic (Score:2)
Because of all the awards given out for going there?
Re: (Score:2)
No, it will be called The Darwin Clinic because of the weird resistant bacteria that will escape out of there.
Conman central. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm waaaay less concerned about unproven treatments going terribly wrong than about the shear volume of outright con-jobs that this will produce. People with a terminal prognosis are easy targets that have bee preyed upon for time immemorial. This is going to be a crime hub, not a medical hub.
Most drugs are useless .. (Score:2)
[1]Skeptical of medical science reports? [nih.gov]
“It is no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines.”
“I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor at the New England Journal of Medicine. But I am convinced that the case for the superiority of [many] drugs has not been proven.”
[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4572812/
Re: (Score:2)
This is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The problems Horton describes in the second quote are "small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance". Every single one of those issues is going to be made worse by this move.
Test cancer treatments on dying cancer victims (Score:1)
When I get a terminal cancer diagnosis, I will be happy to have experimental treatments tested on me, so my suffering might save others.
That option should be available to everyone ( of sound mind ).
Re: (Score:3)
Did you actually read TFS?
> But while that law was originally designed to allow terminally ill people to access experimental drugs, the new bill was drafted and lobbied for by people interested in extending human lifespans -- a group of longevity enthusiasts that includes scientists, libertarians, and influencers.
They already had a law on the books for people looking for actual last-ditch efforts to treat deadly diseases. This is just people with far shallower ambitions.
Re: (Score:2)
> Did you actually read TFS?
>> But while that law was originally designed to allow terminally ill people to access experimental drugs, the new bill was drafted and lobbied for by people interested in extending human lifespans -- a group of longevity enthusiasts that includes scientists, libertarians, and influencers.
> They already had a law on the books for people looking for actual last-ditch efforts to treat deadly diseases. This is just people with far shallower ambitions.
If a bunch of longevity luddites want to freeze themselves in Montana, who are they to turn away good tax revenue for the state?
And for those professionals that “hate” this idea, I’m pretty sure all the adults in the room wanting to become infamous ice cubes can be convinced to do so with a standard liability waiver absolving everyone else. Even the guy refilling the ice machine.
If the sceptics are worried due to ethics, then we should find every one of them vehemently against plastic sur
Re: (Score:2)
Yes.
Yes. That option should be available to everyone ( of sound mind ). As I wrote.