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Existing drugs once approved may legally be used by a doctor for any purpose. In fact, many important medical advances occur this way. In cancer treatment, oncologists doing this kind of thing are 10 years ahead of standard treatments. Yes, there is higher risk, but many patients would rather take a risk than suffer or die with inadequate existing therapies. The real scandal is the long delay in FDA approval of new drugs. In this case we see smart physicians using the circulation increasing characteristics of Viagra to help children in desperate straits.

The real scandal is the long delay in FDA approval of new drugs.

I agree. On this I am a libertarian. I would rather that my physician, in consultation with my family, be free to use whatever drugs (excluding those illegal due to abuse) he sees as best.

There also is a scandal in drugs being taken off the market by the FDA because some patients died from them, even though they are needed by certain other patients to live. My wife's father, an intelligent man, has been having trouble with diabetes control since a drug he used to take was removed from the market. Why shouldn't he and his doctor be free to judge the risks and benefits themselves?

The use of Viagra in babies highlights the problem that ~~of giving drugs approved for adults to children.~~ Very few drugs are tested on babies and children because it is not cost-effective for the pharmaceutical companies and parents are often reluctant to put their children in clinical trials for an untested treatment.

It also highlights the fact that lack of FDA approval doesn't prove that a therapy does not work--and that
"Desperate ills are by desperate measures cured, or not at all."
And that throws the liberal "zero risk" conceit into a cocked hat.

In cancer treatment, oncologists doing this kind of thing are 10 years ahead of standard treatments.

The same thing occurs in psychiatry, except there I've been told they're a good TWENTY years ahead of their treatments being "officially approved" by any self-appointed medical standards organization or the FDA. (The key, though, is make sure your psychiatrist is a psychopharmacologist. That means they're infinitely more versed in the pros and cons of each medication or mixture of medications, and keep up with every major new development that anybody reports anywhere. Your run-of-the-mill shrink or psychologist will generally just pick one of the big-name drugs at random and see if it works for you, and just keep bouncing you from drug to drug until one of them shows an effect. Or, worse, they may just prescribe for you whatever they have a ton of samples of in their closet.