A Visible Hand for Market-Based FDA Reform

Published January 25, 2007

A serious debate about the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory role should be gin with the common-sense principle that the power to make medical decisions rightly belongs first and foremost with patients and doctors. The U.S. Court of Appeals of the D.C. Circuit recently gave support to this principle by affirming the right of dying patients to access not-yet-FDA-approved drugs.