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AlaskaAngel,
I understand your point that trying experimental drugs on advanced disease runs the risk of total failure which may stop further research & perhaps prevents finding their potential on early disease.
But using patients with early stage disease in clinical trials would be of no concern if the disease were not a deadly one. And since there are usually effective treatments for these patients, putting them through an uncertain process is a potentially high risk choice for the patient & an ethical problem for the prescribing MD who is supposed,before all, to cause no harm.
On the other hand for patients who have exhausted all approved treatments & are in dire condition, I don't understand why it is almost never possible to get access to an experimental treatment. Except, maybe,this is the result of the fear of legal procedures by the medical community & by the government agencies.
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