The House plans to vote next week on legislation that would give terminally ill patients the ability to try experimental products, after an effort to quickly pass it failed this week.
The House Rules Committee announced Friday that it will take up the bill that failed on Tuesday. The House tried to pass the bill, which is a major White House priority, under a suspension of the rules, which shortened the debate time but required a two-thirds majority to pass. It failed by just seven votes, 259-140.
A House aide told the Washington Examiner that the same bill that was defeated will be back on the floor next week under a rule, which means it will get a longer debate, but then can pass with just a simple majority.
The bill would let patients near death gain access to any experimental product that passed the first of three clinical trials required for approval by the Food and Drug Administration. The first trial determines whether the drug is safe, but not whether it works.
Most Democrats objected to the bill over fears it could instill false hope in patients, and that the drugs could be unsafe and expose terminally ill patients to bad products.
The FDA already has a program to give patients access to experimental drugs called “compassionate use.” The agency has said it approves the majority of requests it gets through the program.
However, neither “compassionate use” nor the House legislation compels the drug manufacturer to provide the drug to the patient.
The Senate passed its own version of the bill last year. However, the House version includes a narrower definition of who could use the program.
The Senate version said a participant must be be diagnosed with a life-threatening disease or medical condition to gain access to qualifying drugs. But the House version said the person must have a “reasonable likelihood of death” in a few months or “significant irreversible morbidity that is likely to lead to severely premature death.”
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., sponsor of the Senate version, argued that his bill’s definition was “just cleaner,” a sign the House and Senate will have to work out their differences once the House passes its version.
Johnson had pushed for the House to take up the Senate version after the failed vote Tuesday. He said if the House passes its bill next week, it will go back to the Senate to take up.
