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All I Need Is A Miracle And A Constitutional Right To Access It: The Rights Of The Terminally Ill Reconsidered, Amy M. Dudash

Amy M. Dudash

In Abigail Alliance for Better Access to Developmental Drugs v. Von Eschenbach, Abigail Alliance sought to enjoin the FDA from preventing the sale of investigational drugs to terminally ill patients. The Alliance argued that terminally ill patients have a constitutional right to access investigational drugs under the Due Process Clause of Fifth Amendment. In order to determine if a right to non-FDA approved drugs existed under the Due Process Clause, the court applied the test laid out in Washington v. Glucksberg. An en banc panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals held that terminally ill patients did not have …