Governor Rick Snyder has signed a bill to allow terminally ill patients to try experimental therapies when other options have failed.
We have more from The Michigan Public Radio Network’s Rick Pluta.
The new state law will allow patients otherwise facing death a chance to try experimental drugs and other treatments before they’ve been approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration. The patient would have to get a doctor’s recommendation. Doctors could do this before, but what this does is set the procedures in law. It also gives physicians some legal protection.
The new law allows, but does not require private insurance or Medicaid to cover the treatment, and says the drug manufacturer can’t be held liable if the treatment doesn’t work. And it says doctors won’t face disciplinary action unless they act with willful misconduct or reckless disregard for a patient’s health.