RIGHT TO TRY ACT Passes House, Giving Hope to Patients

“But the very last thing to fly out of the box, as Pandora sat there crying, was not as ugly as the others. In fact it was beautiful. It was Hope, which Zeus sent to keep people going when all the nasty things got them down.”

Everyone knows the story, the Greek myth that Pandora opened a box given by Zeus and unleashed disease, worries, crimes, and many other terrible things upon the world.  The last thing to leave the box was Hope, and that one thing has been what keeps humanity going.

Hope is something that keeps us going in the most dire of situations.  For millions of Americans with loved ones facing a critical illness, some type of real hope must be available in the face of unimaginable heartache and desperation.  Thanks to government controlled health care, the last glimmer of hope is too often ripped away by bureaucratic fiat.  In some countries, such as Britain, this has turned to the stuff of nightmares.

In Congress, a majority still holds power which is willing and able to fight for the right of individual control of health care decisions, and against government intrusion in this most intimate part of life.  The Right to Try Act of 2017 just passed the House of Representatives.  It received the full support of Republicans, and 22 Democrats crossed the aisle to vote for it.  Kathleen Rice was not among that handful of Democrats supporting the bill.

What does the Right to Try Act accomplish?  It allows pharmaceutical companies to provide one last bit of hope to those who have none.  When a patient has exhausted all medical options, and an experimental drug is available that has not received FDA approval, the bill allows that patient relief from Federal regulations so that they can try the experimental drug.

While offering a measure of hope to those in desperate circumstances, the bill also holds the pharmaceutical companies responsible for fully and accurately reporting the use and effects of the drugs at issue when administered in this way, and that information is then made public.  This should hardly be controversial.  As much as the Democrats may gleefully scoff at warnings of “death panels,” in light of cases like that of Alfie Evans in Britain it is clear that, once the Pandora’s box of socialized medicine is opened, the nightmare scenarios to emerge will defy belief.

So why did only 22 Democrats support this commonsense bill?  And why Didn’t Kathleen Rice recognize that, for anguished American families, after all other medical options are exhausted, the last spark of hope should not be extinguished by government?

In Congress, Ameer Benno will support measures like the Right to Try Act which restore the dignity and autonomy of Long Islanders when it comes to the most intimate and crucial of life’s decisions.