If the Abigail Alliance had been successful in court, the suit would have radically altered the conduct of clinical cancer research, by providing almost unfettered legal access to experimental drugs by terminally ill patients, who would then have little incentive to enter Phase II and Phase III clinical trials, which are used to determine side effects and efficacy of new drugs. While eligibility factors and geography may limit the ability of some terminally ill patients to access new drugs through clinical trials, those trials also protect patients by collecting safety and efficacy data on new drugs under controlled circumstances.