Right to Try bill to help the dying advances to state Senate
CARSON CITY — A Right to Try bill that would make it easier for terminally ill Nevadans to obtain experimental medications that could help prolong their lives won approval with unanimous support Thursday in the Assembly.
Assembly Bill 164 is sponsored by Assemblyman James Ohrenschall, D-Las Vegas, who said the measure would make it easier for those diagnosed with one year or less to live to seek potential remedies that have not received final approval from the Federal Drug Administration.
The bill moves to state Senate consideration.
Las Vegas attorney Elayna Youchah testified for the bill earlier this session, saying her 86-year-old father is facing a terminal illness and his treatment could benefit from the legislation.
Youchah said a drug going through trials in Arizona and California might help her father, Michael, live longer and have a better quality of life.
He suffers from a form of incurable blood cancer called multiple myeloma and has just about exhausted all of his treatment options.
But the drug, CD 38, which is in a Phase III trial, is not available to him
Ohrenschall said a compassionate use exception allows access to such drugs, but only a few hundred such exceptions are granted each year while annually there are tens of thousands of diagnoses of terminal cancer.
“To me that is unacceptable,” he said in testimony on the bill earlier this session.
The bill is also supported by Assemblywoman Michele Fiore, R-Las Vegas, who had a similar measure but supported Ohrenschall’s bill.
“When a patient is faced with a terminal condition, we need to make every possible treatment available that can help save their life,” she said. “This bill does that and protects doctors and manufacturers from any liability.”
Under the bill, doctors would be authorized to give prescriptions to individuals if three conditions are met: a diagnosis of a terminal condition, a determination that there is no treatment approved by the FDA that is adequate to treat the condition, and that the patient consents with knowledge of the possible consequences of such treatments.
The FDA compassionate use provision allows companies to provide experimental drugs on a case-by-case basis. It is not limited to the terminally ill. There is also no mandate for a company to participate.
The legislation is modeled on a measure developed by the Arizona-based Goldwater Institute, which has been advocating for the legislation around the country
At least five states have adopted such legislation, including Arizona, where it was put on the ballot. It passed in November with nearly 80 percent of the vote. Other states that approved the law are Colorado, Missouri, Louisiana and Michigan.
The Goldwater Institute said more than 1 million Americans die each year of terminal illness, and it takes more than a decade to bring a new drug to market.
Contact Sean Whaley at swhaley@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3900. Find him on Twitter: @seanw801.
