Debunking the claim that the “FDA is holding back cancer cures”

I saw this post by Jake Seliger, which went viral, “I am dying of squamous cell carcinoma, and the treatments that might save me are just out of reach.” He describes what Alex Tabarrok in a 2015 post calls an “invisible graveyard,” due to the FDA being too cautious on potentially curative cancer treatments, “Alex Tabarrok writes about how “when the FDA fails to approve a good drug, people die but the bodies are buried in an invisible graveyard.” Continuing: So what might help me? MRNA tumor vaccines. Head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC) are notoriously treatment resistant, and mRNA vaccines have shown huge promise. Why aren’t they happening faster? Because the FDA is slow. There are some trials underway (here is one from Moderna; here is another), and, although I’m trying to enroll, I may be too late, since my cancer moves so aggressively. The FDA was loathe to approve initial mRNA human trials, even when those trials would have been full of people like me: those who are…