This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, February 20, 2018. I'm Caleb Brown.

The Right to Try Movement on behalf of patients who would like to use non-FDA approved therapies got a shot in the arm with a mention in the state of the union address,

but was it just a throwaway line?

Christina Sandifer of the Goldwater Institute hopes not. We spoke earlier this month.

Right to Try is the notion that people with serious illnesses should be able to use experimental medications to try to

treat their illnesses when essentially most other things have failed.

And then Donald Trump, it seems out of nowhere, says in the State of the Union address, yeah, let's try this out. Let's advance the ball here.

Where does that stand now and is this the highest profile mention of that idea?

It absolutely is, you know, it was really an exciting

culmination for the movement. This is at its very essence a state movement, a

grassroots patient and doctor's effort,

Right to Try, has passed in 38 states

with overwhelming bipartisan support.

And so to get a mention by the President

in the State of the Union when of over 7,000 pending bills in

Congress this is the only bill that the president mentioned in the state of the

Union address I think I think that is a huge victory for patients, doctors,

policy makers who really want to protect this fundamental right on behalf of patients.

I think it came out of the Vice President's work.

He, you know, Vice President Pence when he was governor signed a right to try law into law in

Indiana and has been an advocate for the movement ever since.

So it's really a great testament to federalism to see this statewide bipartisan movement make its way to Washington DC.

...