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Comment by _yb2s

As someone that works in drug discovery as an academic and has patented drugs, I can tell you that the current process is biased way too far towards safety for optimal life saving outcomes if you look at it in a cold utilitarian way. A lot of lives would be saved by fast-tracking the approval process, despite the fact that there would also be an increase in negative outcomes.

However, it is probably not socially or politically tenable to kill or harm people with experimental drugs even if it saves a greater number of people. Realistically, I don't see things changing much.

I don't think its fair to dismiss this perspective as "written from an emotional place." As Alex Tabarrok wrote above, both Jake and his wife (a medical doctor) were involved with this issue before his diagnosis.

parent _yb2s 2 years ago

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