[Historically] the public has remained suspicious of much experimental research which, as a result, was often done on prisoners, orphans, the mentally challenged, and other captive populations without informed consent. But with the emergence of AIDS in the early 1980s, everything changed. Highly organised groups of gay men, confronted with a mysterious life-threatening disease, aggressively advocated for greater research funding and for early inclusion in experimental trials. Their arguments were persuasive enough for the US Food and Drug Administration to revise its protocols, expediting the drug approval process. [A number of moral concerns are raised by this shift in policy] and although groups such as Abigail's Alliance have urged US courts to find a constitutional right for terminally ill patients to get access to unapproved experimental therapies, recent rulings have gone in the other direction.