My mother died of a malignant brain tumor at 55, 4 years ago.
Turns out, when your life expectancy is less than a year, you are willing to try a lot of things.
You know what's better than going to your granddaughter's wedding next month? Living long enough to see your granddaughters born.
My mother applied for every experimental drug treatment available. She got accepted into 1 out of 6. Her doctor told her it's standard practice for drug companies to deny access to experimental drugs if they believe the success rate is going to be low, because it makes their success rate look lower.
Think about that for a second.
The drug had already passed the safety trials, i.e. they knew it wouldn't kill her, but they weren't sure whether it would help her. The company thought there was a low, but not non-zero chance the treatment would work, and they denied it.
My mother knew she was going to die, she was grasping at straws for a cure. Trying new treatments isn't sacrifice.
The sacrifice is not doing and learning everything you can. The sacrifice is throwing away fully informed and willing test subjects, and having a bureaucracy that prevents people from trying to save their own lives.
I'm sorry to hear that your mother did not get access to a treatment that she wanted to receive. Clinical trials cherry pick the patients that they think will do the best. This is a dubious practice at best, but it is what they do, and they do it because as you point out, most new treatments have only an incremental benefit that is easily obscured.
Turns out, when your life expectancy is less than a year, you are willing to try a lot of things.
You know what's better than going to your granddaughter's wedding next month? Living long enough to see your granddaughters born.
My mother applied for every experimental drug treatment available. She got accepted into 1 out of 6. Her doctor told her it's standard practice for drug companies to deny access to experimental drugs if they believe the success rate is going to be low, because it makes their success rate look lower.
Think about that for a second.
The drug had already passed the safety trials, i.e. they knew it wouldn't kill her, but they weren't sure whether it would help her. The company thought there was a low, but not non-zero chance the treatment would work, and they denied it.
My mother knew she was going to die, she was grasping at straws for a cure. Trying new treatments isn't sacrifice.
The sacrifice is not doing and learning everything you can. The sacrifice is throwing away fully informed and willing test subjects, and having a bureaucracy that prevents people from trying to save their own lives.