No other options: Government backs use of unlicensed medicines on terminally ill

'Saatchi's law' would protect doctors who try out unlicensed medicines on dying patients after they have exhausted all other options.

17:07 20 October 2014

Reports confirmed that the UK government now backs the use of untested medicine on terminally ill patients in some cases.

 

The Daily Telegraph reported that Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, is spearheading the backbench bill which will be debated in parliament this week. 

 

Conservative peer Lord Saatchi’s medical innovation bill will protect doctors who try out unlicensed medicines on dying patients after they have exhausted all other options.  

 

He said: “In dealing with the deadly Ebola outbreak, the World Health Organisation has decided that departure from standard evidence-based treatment is fully justified and essential.

 

“It has set ethical guidelines for the use of new therapies and interventions - they are identical to the provisions of the medical innovation bill.”

 

He added that “the current law is a barrier to progress in curing cancer.” 

 

Saatchi continued: "All cancer deaths are wasted lives. Scientific knowledge has not advance by one centimetre as a result of all these deaths, because the current law requires the deceased receive only the standard procedure – the endless repetition of a failed experiment."