A bill has been introduced by state Sen. Josh Harkins, who says he is concerned by the lengthy process to get drugs approved while people suffer.
The legislation is Senate Bill 2858, which was approved by the Mississippi Senate and sent to the Mississippi House of Representatives.
“We tried to make [the legislation] as robust as we could,” Harkins tells AFN, “to allow for people that had ailments or diseases, or terminal illnesses, that had tried virtually everything under the sun, and no luck.”
The bill describes a faster process in which a patient, with a doctor’s help, can work with a drug manufacturer during the FDA’s three-phase trial period, which can span a decade.
The group Americans for Prosperity reported late last year Congress is also working to speed up FDA approval of life-saving drugs. That bipartisan legislation is called the Promising Pathway Act.
Harkins says he personally knows people who traveled to foreign countries to obtain medical treatments, or medicine, that is not yet approved in the United States.
