Both bans on unhealthful foods and warning label requirements face strong legal opposition from industry and ignite furious public debate about the role and limits of government intervention in American lifestyles.
Though there are channels through which terminally ill patients can access some experimental drugs that have not yet received FDA approval for marketing to the public, in general those drugs must already be proven safe and effective.
Despite leaps forward in medical technology that have enabled the timely detection and effective treatment of many cancers, members of marginalized racial and ethnic groups and patients without health insurance often do not receive timely and appropriate care.
It is difficult to argue that consumers are maximizing their welfare by consuming trans fats, particularly because the production and taste costs of replacing them do not outweigh the health benefits.
People with mental illness or a degenerative mental disease have special protections under the law when entering into contracts or other binding documents.
Physicians have a professional obligation and, in many states, a legal duty to report drivers whose functional or cognitive impairments may pose a safety hazard.
Physicians are cautioned that the two obstacles to reforming post-marketing clinical trials are the FDA's reluctance to revisit past approvals and its inability to enforce pharmaceutical companies' commitment to conduct Phase IV trials.