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WASHINGTON (AP) - Terminally ill patients, seeking early access to experimental drugs unlikely to be approved before they die, won a legal reprieve Tuesday in a federal appeals court.
A three-judge panel reinstated a lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration filed on behalf of the patients and returned the case to district court that had dismissed it in 2004.
"Barring a terminally ill patient from the use of a potentially lifesaving treatment impinges on this right of self-preservation," Judge Judith W. Rogers wrote in the 2-1 opinion from the panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
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