House committee advances bill allowing access to non‑FDA experimental treatments after amendments

The House Committee on House Health and Human Services on Tuesday voted to pass Senate Bill 250, a measure that would permit patients to receive certain investigational medical treatments outside established clinical trials, after adopting three amendments intended to tighten informed consent and clarify financial liabilities.

Committee members said the bill is intended to give seriously ill patients another avenue of care for treatments not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but several representatives warned the proposal, as originally written, left important questions about consent, DNA or cell use, costs and safeguards unanswered.

Representative Opeza, a committee member who opposed the bill, urged more time for scrutiny and raised ethical concerns about how cells and genetic material collected under the bill might later be used. "This bill does have a consent," Opeza said, "but it never ... state[s] if they should happen to find some wonderful new potential use of these DNA cells that they collect from potential Kansans, how that would be consented for or how that would be used going forward." She said the measure was "very vague" on whether families would…