On the old and the dying.

JUDGING DRUGS

I  SERVE AS adjunct scholar to the Abigail Alliance for Better Access to Developmental Drugs, which has sued the Food and Drug Administration to permit terminal patients with no therapeutic options left except death to use investigational drugs. We take issue with key aspects of Robert F. Nagel's "Conservative Judicial Activism?" (Feb. 5). Nagel states incorrectly that the issue rests on whether "there is a constitutional right to use unapproved drugs." The drugs in question are neither approved nor unapproved: They are investigational drugs that have been found safe enough by the FDA for continued testing on hundreds more patients. These investigational drugs have cleared the FDA's Phase 1 and have been found safe enough to be investigated on hundreds of patients in Phase 2.

I argue that the decision to take such drugs should remain between an informed terminal patient with no treatment options left and his experienced oncologist-without government interference by a third party sitting in Rockville, Maryland. The FDA should for safety and efficacy control drugs, but not life.

As to preserving that life, we acknowledge that there is in this country a long established history and tradition, supported by considerable jurisprudence, that constitutionally protects an individual's right to self-defense, self-preservation, and, indeed, "life" itself in the due process clause.

We are reassured, in Nagel's observation, that Justice Antonin Scalia "seems attracted to the idea that the right to self-defense . . . has constitutional status." We further note that Chief Justice Roberts stated in his confirmation hearings that he believes there is a constitutional right to privacy-and, we assert, to its manifestations of self-defense, self-preservation, and "life."

RONALD L. TROWBRIDGE
Fredericksburg, Va.

ROBERT F. NAGEL RESPONDS: My use of the phrase "unapproved drugs" referred to my earlier statement that a right to medical self-defense would mean that the government could not prevent a sick individual from using "an experimental drug not yet deemed effective by the Food and Drug Administration." This is entirely consistent with Trowbridge's formulation.

I GROW OLD . . .

REGARDING Joseph Epstein's "Kid Turns 70" (Jan. 29): Now that I am 75 years old, whenever I am confronted with someone's dates (e.g., Edmund Burke, 1729-1797), I am in the habit of subtracting the date of birth from the date of death (answer: 68), and then comparing that to my own age. If I'm older, I say to myself, "Hah! I have outlived the SOB!" Alternatively, when I think of someone like George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), who fell from a ladder and died at age 94, I think to myself, "If he can do it, then maybe so can I."

I have noticed that my attention is stretching backward; dates around the turn of the last century are familiar friends. I find myself consulting my 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica more often than any recent version. I recall being a kid and seeing World War I veterans marching in an Armistice Day parade. How ancient they seemed to me! But now I realize that there were only about 20 years between the world wars.

I used to think with Woody Allen that an exception would be made in my case, but now, at 75, with systems failing, I can see the Eternal Footman holding my coat. Please, no snickering.

PETER CHASE
Alpine, Tex.