My wife is a doctorate in pharmacology, I made exactly this argument to her but she dismantled it pretty quickly.

a) We do test on terminally ill people, but after testing in other models. b) Thalidomide was all roses compared to the horrors you can inflict. c) Profit-driven industry makes extremely perverse incentives.

Still I do come down more on your side of the argument, and we have historically made massive leaps doing some horrific things.

I wonder if we can get better models based off of human cell-lines / tissues? Like CRISPR did?

Besides moral qualms I think it could be difficult establishing a representative baseline with the elderly and terminally ill

“The elderly” might be much less sensitive to risks but it may still be an issue if the experimental drug you gave Grandma turns her into soup.

> For example, the elderly and those with terminal diagnoses.

The amount of disdain you have for human life when it's past an accepted state of freshness is disgusting.