The Disingenuousness of ‘Right to Try’
The new law has a catchy name, but it will only make it more difficult to know if medication is effective or safe.
In the Oval Office on Wednesday the president kissed a small boy with muscular dystrophy. Behind them were two men who Trump described as battling ALS. He thanked them for their bravery. He took up his pen for the camera and announced that by signing the controversial legislation—known as “right to try”—he would be saving hundreds of thousands of lives.
“We will be saving—I don’t even want to say thousands, because I think it’s going to be much more. Thousands and thousands. Hundreds of thousands. We’re going to be saving tremendous numbers of lives.”
In fact it’s unclear if the law will save a single life, especially when weighed against how many lives it could shorten. There’s no way to know, and that is exactly the point. The law
