[ExI] Alzheimers again

BillK pharos at gmail.com
Wed Dec 10 19:32:53 UTC 2014


On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 6:12 PM, spike wrote:
<snip>
> So, we set up a special class where we know what happens if we do nothing,
> such as AD patients.  We let that class of willing and eager volunteers do
> whatever they think is right, and absolve their medical teams of any
> responsibility if things go wrong, which they will in nearly every case.
>
> All we ask is that we have some kind of objective monitoring and feedback
> loop, so the experimental results don't get lost, as they are now with
> experimental AD medications.
>
> How do we do this?
>
>

There are already some moves in this direction.

In the UK, the Medical Innovation Bill is going through Parliament and
has government support.
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29684785>
Quote:
The Medical Innovation Bill proposed by Lord Saatchi would allow some
people dying of cancer to be voluntarily treated with unlicensed
drugs.
The bill has been amended to require doctors to get the agreement of
another specialist to prescribing the drugs. That safeguard has led
the Department of Health to give its support.
----------------

Also, the Ebola epidemic has caused the WHO to allow untested drugs to be used.
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-28754160>
Quote:
Untested drugs can be used to treat patients infected with the Ebola
virus, the World Health Organization says.
The WHO said it was ethical in light of the scale of the outbreak and
high number of deaths - more than 1,000 people have died in West
Africa.
The statement was made after its medical experts met in Switzerland on
Monday to discuss the issue.
The WHO said where experimental treatments are used there must be
informed consent and the results of the treatment collected and
shared.
-----------


So I think the door is opening. It should be possible to get a campaign going.

The main problem I see with Alzheimers is that it is such a gradual
disease, not urgent like Ebola or cancer. So early treatment with
untested drugs probably wouldn't be allowed because it might make the
patient rapidly worse. Tricky......


BillK



More information about the extropy-chat mailing list