Why are clinical trials so regulated on the terminally ill?

I work in a research (cancer) hospital on clinical trials and other related work dealing with various types of cancer. Why do you think putting a terminally ill patient on a clinical trial is so difficult with the regulations. In many cases, trial drugs have a shot at success (prolonging life) and aren't as potent as some traditional chemo/radiation methods. You still need consent, it is still regulated etc. These people are dying. They have less than a month to live. They are choosing to die. Why can't they be forced onto trials that may save their lives or at very least, help researchers learn more about their disease?

Why are clinical trials so regulated on the terminally ill?
We don't have the right to force anyone to do anything, this is still a free country,and it is arrogant and selfish for us to tell someone how to live their last days.
Reply:It seems there's a large difference between regulating experimental care and forcing people into experimental care.





Some people don't want the longevity at the price required. My father never got over the medical care endured by a friend of his who had cancer in his mouth. In attempting to save him, tho there was the barest of chances, the docs cut out his tongue. He died three weeks later anyway.





Others might choose to accept that the end is coming, and spend what time they have left with as much normalcy and family contact as they can muster.





My precious father had an inkling for a day or two that something wasn't right, and then he died before us of a massive heart attack at 65. In my agony over why I didn't force him to go to the hospital when he confided his inkling, a kind and wise young answerer on yahoo responded to one of my questions - how would you rather spend your last hours? making pizza for your grandkids, dancing with your wife in the kitchen while it bakes, and playing a game with everyone after dinner or tethered to blinking, beeping machines in a tiny curtained space with worried family members squeezing in and out to murmur worriedly at you?





sometimes, a few extra hours, days, weeks just aren't worth the price, i guess.
Reply:First, do no harm.

medicine