Introduction
Access to unproven drugs for patients, especially with no other options for treatment, raises an ethical dilemma. In many cases, before the patients are given the opportunity to experiment with unproven drugs, a number of ethical requirements must be satisfied. For instance, the drugs given to the patients should be made specifically for terminally ill patients. Evidence shows that it is unethical to expose people with mild conditions to unproven drugs or medications that are life-threatening (Borysowski et al.,2020). According to these investigations, drugs are utilized where there is no other available medical option for a condition. Analyzing experimental medications for patients without other options requires an awareness of moral principles and ethical theories, as well as the provision of informed consent. Making these unproven drugs is associated with several benefits and costs.
Relevant Ethical Theories and Moral Principles
Ethical principles such as respect for person, justice, and beneficence are highly encouraged in the experimentation involving unproven drugs. The principle of beneficence includes the rights of the patient to protection and the right of participants to freedom from discomfort and harm. The justice principle pertains to the patient’s right to privacy and fair treatment (. Barrow et al.,2017). The Respect for Person or human dignity principle dictates that researchers should work to protect patients’ autonomy.
Informed Consent
Before the patient is taken into consideration for the trial experimentation of new drugs or treatments, written informed consent is considered a necessary document (Borysowski et al.,2019). For example, in order to make an educated decision, a patient must be well told about the drug being tested, the experiment’s perceived outcome, as well as risks associated with the experiments. The ability to test unapproved medications is opposed on the grounds that the patient’s understanding is mainly hindered by the technical terms utilized, potential misconceptions, and success confusion rate. Before the patient is given the drug, this procedure needs to guarantee that everyone is in agreement.
Costs and Benefits
The unproven drug experimentation process is linked to several costs to the stakeholders as well as the patients involved (Borysowski et al.,2020). The financial strain on the families of the patients is exacerbated by the fact that costs or expenditures of experimental treatment are not covered fully by hospice. Additionally, investigative drugs are usually linked with decreased liabilities of physicians and pharmaceutical companies since they lack oversight of the Food and Drug Administration. Benefits associated with such experiments are increased options for treatment, fair medication access, enhanced safety of a drug due to enough scientific knowledge regarding the drug, and increased likelihood of patient life extension. Such benefits make it morally acceptable to allow terminally ill individuals to test experimental medications with informed consent.
Arguments For and Against
Right-to-try advocates contend that experimental medications that have not yet proven effective have progressed beyond Phase 1 of the development of the drug and shown positive results, especially for the targeted disease. On the other, opponents of these unproven drugs argue that patients have inadequate understanding due to potential misconceptions. Examples supporting these claims highlight the significant balance between personal health and the field’s collective pursuit of medical knowledge.
Conclusion
In summary, patients with no access to other options for treatment have a moral right when it comes to the use of unproven drugs. Such experiments tend to maintain ethical principles such as justice, beneficence, and respect for persons involved, and therefore, it is considered unethical to refuse them the legal right to try any kind of medication, especially if with informed consent. Evidence shows that investigative drugs are past the first trial and are safer; therefore, professional like pharmacist has significant information about the importance of medicine. Patients who have exhausted all other medical alternatives can benefit from these drugs by having additional options.
References
Barrow, J. M., Brannan, G. D., & Khandhar, P. B. (2017). Research ethics. https://europepmc.org/books/nbk459281
Borysowski, J., & Górski, A. (2020). Ethics framework for treatment use of investigational drugs. BMC Medical Ethics, 21(1), 1-10. https://bmcmedethics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12910-020-00560-9
Borysowski, J., Ehni, H. J., & Górski, A. (2019). Ethics codes and use of new and innovative drugs. British journal of clinical pharmacology, 85(3), 501-507. https://bpspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/bcp.13833
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