The Gatekeepers of Medical Regulation are Horrified by Freedom, Responsibility, and Progress

Much pearl-clutching is in evidence in a recent article on the existence of groups, such as Libella Gene Therapeutics, attempting to prototype telomerase gene therapies via patient paid trials, or such as Integrated Health Systems and BioViva, trying to develop markets for such therapies via medical tourism. The gatekeepers of medical regulation stand in opposition to the idea that patients and their supporters can make responsible decisions about risk, based on the available data. Medicine is somehow a privileged space, different from every other human endeavor, in which only the anointed priesthood are allowed to determine what is and is not allowed. It is reprehensible. Analysis has shown that this attitude, and the system of regulation that accompanies it, costs a great many lives by slowing the development of new therapies and limiting the opportunities for treatment. Medicine, like every form of service, works best in an environment of review organizations, competition, and due diligence by customers. At the end of the day, it is always a matter of caveat emptor. And this already happens, as anyone who has been through a scheduled surgery can tell you. Patients absolutely shop the market to the degree that present regulation allows them to do so, and there is a robust system of legal culpability by which fraud and harm can be prosecuted. As is the case in every other industry, providers of medical services have financial and other incentives to produce good resul...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Politics and Legislation Source Type: blogs