Not always. There have been cases such as the nightmare that Justina Pelletier went through. She was diagnosed by a doctor at Tufts with mitochondrial disease. While visiting Boston, she had an episode and her parents took her to Boston Children's Hospital.

Boston Children's decided that she didn't have mitochondrial disease (as pretty much a snap judgement) and that the parents were abusing her by taking her to doctors. They got the court to award them guardianship and locked her on a psych ward.

It took a long battle to get her out.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/201...

As long as the patients are warned about the potential side-effects, I don't see a problem.

I would also point out that claims of "malpractice" in the medical field are what are one of the primary contributing factors to rises in healthcare insurance and especially doctors' insurance rates. Those most hard hit are in OB/GYN.

Many people are on non-approved FDA drugs but they had to go through a long process to get FDA approval to do so. Now that process isn't necessary. It's funny really. States have enacted Right to Die policies but a Right to Try and Live policy hasn't been done until now. Bravo to the government for once.

The legislation slightly eases the administrative burden on patients, through bypassing the FDA in the decision-making process. It's a small step that hopefully will lead to bigger ones.

It varies quite a bit - medical centers with specialization in cancer treatment will have better outcomes than the few oncologists in the general hospital type of thing. Unfortunately, health care coverage doesn't span across state lines... so if you are a Kaiser patient in California, unless you can write a really big check, you won't be going to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.

My sister-in-law was diagnosed with lymphoma, had a year or so of alcohol ablation therapy (every 3 months or so) at Mayo Clinic, been cancer free now for almost 10 years. No poisoning, no radiation, etc. http://www.washdiplomat.com/index.php...

If a different person goes into the revenue-oriented hometown general hospital, to be honest, they are going to stand on the efficacy of traditional treatments as a reason to go to "plan A" first - because they can rack up millions in health care bills. I know it sounds horrible, and I'm not saying it's the truth, but I'm saying it is a significant factor. How much do you get paid for injecting a pint of ethanol into someone's body, versus radiation & chemotherapy at $5,000 a bottle for years? Statistically, they probably have similar outcomes, and certainly, a separate relative of mine recently passed after 4 years of being completely filled with cancer (like 50 tumors), plus liver & lymphatic cancer - and he was given 3-6 months to live originally. They did extend his life with a couple of good years before the last 2 horrible ones - but it certainly took its toll on him. Observing the difference was mind-blowing though.

Other reasons - Mayo and similar specializing hospitals don't accept Medicare or Medicaid as payment (in-full), so they are also not bound by what the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid tell them is an acceptable treatment - so no governing policy obstructions for the doctors.

There are others around the country, I'm most familiar with Mayo, but being willing to give CMS the finger on Medicare & Medicaid sets them free from the politics of medicine.