Does a Patient Deserve the Full Truth About Chemo-Therapy Agents

The cancer fighting compound know as Taxotere has been driving a lot of debate about a client’s right to choose their own medications. Fighting cancer with chemo often involves a cocktail of drugs that may have a array of side-effects, about which the patient is usually informed. So when one drug, Taxotere, is found to cause permanent baldness, not just temporary baldness, the glib reaction may be to say “so what”? However, in the case of Taxotere, there was a prior version of the drug that does not cause permanent baldness and has been shown to be just as effective, if not more effective, than Taxotere. Shouldn’t the patient be given the choice of which drug to use?