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Dying To Wait: How The Abigail Court Got It Wrong, Juan Joel Tovanche

Journal of Law and Health

At age twenty-one, Abigail Kathleen Burroughs met a fate usually reserved for aged men who have spent much of their lives drinking and smoking. Diagnosed with cancer at nineteen, Abigail battled the squamous cell carcinoma that invaded her body even as she struggled to maintain her characteristic optimism. Abigail struggled with more than her illness, however. In the last years of her life, Abigail and her family also wrestled with Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations that denied her access to medication that could have saved her life. The policy at issue was the FDA's practice of progressive testing, which …