The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s controversial decision to approve aducanumab for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease raises at least three major ethical issues that need to be addressed, states a new article in the Hastings Center Report:
- Billions of dollars in Medicare resources (which is to say, taxpayer dollars) are at risk of being unjustly squandered.
- Physicians must choose between facilitating this unjust squandering and denying desperate patients and families access to this drug.
- Patients and families are having false hopes legitimated and encouraged when physicians prescribe aducanumab.
The drug’s approval was contrary…
