Question: If you had a sudden breakthrough and found out how to (possibly) completely eradicate a lethal virus, but it may speed up the disease the virus is spreading as it has not been tested properly, would you immeadiately try to treat a dying patient or would you test it properly first, even if the patient would die before the treatment had been tested?

Daren Fearon answered on 16 Jun 2014:

This is a very tricky ethical question. Any drug has to go through clinical trials to ensure it is both effective and safe before it is allowed to be used in patients. Part of these trials include testing it in people with the disease, in some cases these people have not responded to existing treatments that might be available and may be terminally ill. So in some cases it may be possible for the patient may be able to get access to the experimental treatment as part of the clinical trial. However, if there was a chance that this drug could increase the disease it is unlikely to get to the stage where it would be tried out in humans.