Off the Ranch OK

As some of you may have noticed, I also use this blog just to make notes for myself and organize my information about ALS.

This, then: The bright and able assistant to my local neurologist says that, yes, they can prescribe medications for me that are being studied in clinical trials. The example we used was minocycline, so her response was specific to that, but my question was a general one. You might think: "How can they prescribe something that hasn't been studied yet? Isn't that illegal?"

It would be, if the safety of the substance were unknown, but minocycline for example is an old and well-understood antibiotic. You could prescribe it for acne if you wanted, I suppose.

Things have to go through safety trials before they can be used in humans. But the issue with minocycline and Insulin Growth Factor is not a safety threshold, they are just testing them to see if they slow down ALS.

And you might get the placebo if you get into the study.