Terminally ill people in Arizona would have a chance to reach for another lifeline if state legislators send a referendum to the November general-election ballot and voters approve it.
The measure, the Terminal Patients Compassionate Care Act (HCR 2005), is founded on a concept from the Phoenix-based Goldwater Institute think tank called the “Right to Try Act.”
The Goldwater Institute’s Web site (goldwaterinstitute.org) says the act “would enable terminally ill patients who have exhausted all of their available treatment options to access experimental drugs that have been deemed safe but whose efficacy has yet to be determined.
“Under the current system,” the site explains, “even after an investigational drug has passed the Food and Drug Administration’s Phase I (the testing phase during which safety is established), it can take an additional six or more years for the drug to be approved for market — even if clinical trials are yielding promising results.”
Christina Corieri, a health-care policy analyst at Goldwater, told ADI in a Feb. 20 interview that “there doesn’t need to be a bureaucrat in the process … with unnecessary hurdles” when a terminally ill person is fighting for an opportunity to survive.
Corieri said no state has such a law yet, although a few states’ legislators are weighing similar proposals.
Describing the idea as a Goldwater Institute initiative, Corieri said, “I think this is the start of a new movement… Everyone that’s battling for their life needs all the tools they can.”
The Goldwater Web site says Corieri commented that “the tragedy is that many of the drugs terminal patients can’t access today will be saving the lives of future patients just a few years from now.”
Goldwater Institute spokesman Charles Siler told ADI that the measure passed the House Reform and Human Services Committee on a 5-3 vote on Feb. 13 and awaits action in the House Rules Committee, although a date hasn’t been set there.
Siler said that “unfortunately” the vote was along party lines, with the Democrats in opposition, although “this is the kind of legislation which definitely should be bipartisan.”
The intention isn’t to give terminal patients “things that would obviously kill them,” Siler said. “…Obviously the risk profile is different for a terminal patient… If there is a potential for hope … it should be their right to try to save their own life.”
Corieri said that Republican state Rep. Phil Lovas is the prime sponsor, with 18 co-sponsors.
“Honestly, I don’t know why” no Democrat voted for it in committee, she said.
A similar bill in Colorado has a Democrat as one of the lead sponsors, along with three Democratic co-sponsors, Corieri said.
She said she hopes legislators will see “this is a freedom people should have.”
Neither Corieri nor Siler would speculate on whether the measure would pass the Arizona legislature this year.
The Goldwater Web site says the current approval process fails the sickest patients for various reasons, among them:
“While clinical trials often represent a terminal patient’s last hope, most are prevented from participating. Forty percent of cancer patients want to get into a clinical trial, but only 3 percent succeed in doing so.”
Because HCR 2005 would be a referendum question, it wouldn’t need the governor’s signature to advance to the November ballot.
A measure on a different subject that passed the House Reform and Human Services Committee on a 5-3 party-line vote, with Democrats united in opposition, is the Women’s Health Protection Act, HB 2284.
Supported by the traditionalist Center for Arizona Policy, this bill would make abortion clinics subject to the same unannounced inspections that currently apply to other medical offices.
Republican state Rep. Debbie Lesko told ADI in a Feb. 18 interview, “The reason for me sponsoring this bill is I was quite surprised that only abortion clinics” couldn’t be inspected without a warrant.
“I think that inspections of abortion clinics should be brought in line” with what applies to every other health facility in Arizona, she said. “They are all subject to unannounced inspections” by the Department of Health Services.
“You need to get an administrative search warrant,” which “could take several days,” even if a complaint was made against the abortion facility, Lesko said.
She said Philadelphia abortionist and convicted murderer Kermit Gosnell – whose abortion clinic was called the “House of Horrors” – is “an important example” of what can happen when “women are not respected.”
Regardless of one’s views on abortion, Lesko said, there should be a verified “healthy environment” at clinics.
Most of the public reaction she has received to the bill, such as through Facebook and e-mail, has been positive, she said. “I think it’s very good odds” to pass.
“I do think there will be some Democrats” who’d vote for the measure on the House floor, she said.
The bill awaits action in the House Rules Committee.