Herceptin life by lottery

[Denny Crane!]

Do you believe this potentially life saving drug should be given only to serious cases of breast cancer? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programme...ma/4670232.stm

Herceptin: wanting the wonder drug

Sunday 5 February 2006
22:15 GMT, BBC One
Watch programme
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A new generation of expensive drugs is revolutionising the treatment of cancer and throwing the NHS into turmoil.

One of those drugs, Herceptin, has had women marching on Westminster, demanding that it be available on the NHS within weeks of promising trial data being revealed.

When one patient threatened to take her case to court and Herceptin hit the headlines, the Secretary of State intervened prompting health authorities to complain to the Department of Health of political arm twisting.

Panorama tells the inside story of the pressure put on a cash strapped Primary Care Trust to change its mind and fund a hugely expensive drug, simply, claims its Chairman, "to satisfy the whim of the PM and Secretary of State".

From Stoke to Westminster


The story begins in a chemotherapy ward in Stoke-on-Trent in the summer of 2005, when a group of women started chatting.

They all had early stage breast cancer. Seven had a particularly aggressive tumour. One had heard of a drug that might help. No sooner had they been told Herceptin could work for them than they were told they couldn't have it.

Herceptin is already licensed and available on the NHS for women with advanced breast cancer but not yet as a treatment for early onset breast cancer.

Stoke's women weren't prepared to wait, nor did the possible side effects put them off. For them it was a must have drug, their shot at a cure.

But with many NHS hospitals in financial crisis, is it right that an expensive, unlicensed drug should be made available to a select group of patients, whilst others are having their operations cancelled?

On the eve of the first ever High Court case that will pit a patient fighting for Herceptin against her local health chiefs, Panorama talks exclusively to the patient involved and reveals the results of a prescription survey carried out among the country's oncologists.

[RusskiSoldat]

Epitome of what is wrong with this system.
Patients being denied drugs because of cost.

[Big War Bird]

If she wants that drug so bad then she should buy the damn thing herself.

[Erik]

If she wants that drug so bad then she should buy the damn thing herself.

I fully agree.

The only alternative is that all people with NHS have to pay a higher contribution.

If you realy want access to very expensive experimental drugs you should just get insurance that covers them.
Of course such an insurance wil be extremely expensivem but that's the choice you have.

I prefer to pay far less for my insurance, and take less expensive drugs.
My health is important to me, but not so much that I'm willing to spend everything I have on it.
And besides: "cheap" drugs are usually good enough, and a lot better than you could buy 10 years ago with all the money in the world.

[Custor]

Potentially life saving, potentially life threatening - Heart failure, allergic reactions and swelling of the lungs.

We have drug licensing for a reason. It protects us from quacks and helps to prevent a recurrence of the Thalidomide horror.

[Denny Crane!]

There are a number of reasons why its not being given:

The NHS doesn't have unlimited cash reserves, thats life.

It has not yet been approved by a clinical analysis body like NICE.

However if you were potentially dying of breast cancer would you want to be told any of this?

Peter

[RusskiSoldat]

If she wants that drug so bad then she should buy the damn thing herself.

She can't afford it?

Potentially life saving, potentially life threatening - Heart failure, allergic reactions and swelling of the lungs.

If I had cancer I would take a riskt o save my life.

The NHS doesn't have unlimited cash reserves, thats life.

No, that's the economic system.

It has not yet been approved by a clinical analysis body like NICE.

Senseless beaurocracy. Too slow to act and needlessly complicated.

However if you were potentially dying of breast cancer would you want to be told any of this?

Of course not.
I'd rather keep on hoping blindly rather than now there's a drug out there that can potentially save my life and isn't being given to me.

[Denny Crane!]

No, that's the economic system.

Actually its not, if every drug was offered to every patient in every situation the price would be to high. There must be a limit somewhere.

Senseless beaurocracy. Too slow to act and needlessly complicated.

Well its about finding wether drugs are safe and cost effective. There are mathematical equations involved, x number of patients saved by drug - x number of patients killed by it. It is all necessary.

Of course not.
I'd rather keep on hoping blindly rather than now there's a drug out there that can potentially save my life and isn't being given to me.

Well I can't imagine looking at it from the other side of the fence I have to admit.

Peter

[Custor]

If you are dieing of cancer (late stage) then you ARE prescribed.

At the early stages where many and multiple treatments are available additional clinical trials are being conducted to assess the benefits/risks of this drug versus existing treatments.

As the fifteen year old in the news this week with the overdose of radio therapy, people are NOT happy to just take the risk. When treatments go wrong, which with all treatments will inevitably happen, patients want to know why it happened and why they weren't informed of the risks.

Until NICE are able to assess the risks versus benefits of treatment then they're not going to prescribe for EARLY stage cancer.

If you want to ignore all risk/benefit analysis then I can sell you some 'Cure all Tonic' for as all the cash you have.

[imb39]

That 15 year old suffered from SEVENTEEN overdoses of radiation... She had radiation burns on the back of her neck. But, Custor, the rest of your post I like!

[RusskiSoldat]

If the drug works, give it.
Of course cure all tonics aren't givne out for a reason, but a drug not being given for a strictly financial reason is nothing short of extortion.
Why does medicide cost so much?
It saves lives.
And people are more willing to get into deep debt than die.
It's extortion.

[Ahlerich]

because it costs a lot to invent it and the industry wants its piece of the pie

capitalism baby ;] its not invented to save lives its invented because there is a demand to be satisfied and that means cash

[RusskiSoldat]

And I find that wrong.
It really amazes me how little capitalists value other people and then accuse me of being inhumane.

[Ahlerich]

well for me personally i do not like eg the medicine thing. a lot about it. that companies that try to find a cure for something dont share their progresses with other companies and the world to accelerate the progress of finding cures for stuff. and also the big bucks that are made this way disturb me. in some countries with a bad medical system like the US that ultimativly leads to 'Health for the rich' which is if u look at it a seperation of the population in 2 classes of humans

the sad thing is this is how the system works and i dont see a short or longterm solution, not even an aproach to the problem. its just a sad fact i think.

i mean cancer and even aids... there would be a cure for it allready if all scientistic results and research results would be shared among all scientists working on it. one might almost assume that only treatments for cancer and aids are developped instead of a cure to make bigger bucks on it and keep the demand high.

[bdh]

i mean cancer and even aids... there would be a cure for it allready if all scientistic results and research results would be shared among all scientists working on it.

The results of all medical experiments are published. I have no idea where you're getting this "secret research" concept. It would be impossible to release a drug in the first place if every aspect of the drug was not known to the general medical community. You're thinking about how companies can patent the results of their experiments to make money off of them.

one might almost assume that only treatments for cancer and aids are developped instead of a cure to make bigger bucks on it and keep the demand high

Yes and there is a grand conspiracy that every single scientist is in on. If that were true, I'd bet a doctor would come forth tomorrow, patent this mysterious drug all by himself, and walk away a billionaire leaving all his co-conspirators in the dust. After all, they ARE greedy and evil.......

[Ahlerich]

to bdh.. i mean during the time of research, development and design of the medicine/drugs the results are not shared between the companies...the secret concept i got from hoffman la roche a huge drug company i worked for as a network admin for several years

EDIT: and that why it slows down the development process of drugs. that was what i was trying to say
with result i didnt mean the final result. i do not have the feeling for the english language so that word pick was prolly wrong. well now u know how i meant it anyways

im also not talking about a big conspiracy thing, the part "one might think.." was semi sarcastic
but u must wonder why the cancer healing takes forever to develop, or not?
i mean there were treatments in the 30s already..in the meanwhile we landed on moon dropped a sensor or ropot {donno how to describe it in english} on mars, and so many other inventions where made.
the process of technological advance increases like crazy and for almost hundred years still no cure for cancer. that is strange

[Erik]

the process of technological advance increases like crazy and for almost hundred years still no cure for cancer. that is strange

But medicine IS developing at an increadibly high rate.

Computers are developig fast too.
But still no quantum PC's in the living room.
We don't even have graphics card with millions of pilepines.
That's strange.

And space travel:
They could put men on the moon decades ago.
And still no faster than light travel?
Not even a single colony on Mars?
That's strange.

If you got cancer 30 years ago you were almost centainly doomed.
Now your survival chance is way more than 50%.

100 years ago you would be happy to live up to the age of 60.
A woman giving birth had a serious chance she wouldn't survive.
Not you can expect to live decades longer, and almost every birth is successfull.

The problem is that people are never content with the quality of healthcare.
But medicine is probably the fastest developing technology.

[imb39]

Cancer comes in many forms. There are some that we're very successful at treating, others less so...

[Erik]

You also have to consider that people don't have eternal life, so they have to die from something.
Because most other diseases can now be cured they wil usually die from the few that can't always be cured yet.

[Denny Crane!]

Another interesting development without a source sorry.

There is a book coming out claiming that within decades cancer will be a manageable disease but only for the rich. The drugs needed to control it are going to be so expensive, one example was cited as being a tablet in devlopment for lung cancer that effectivly controls it but needs to be taken daily for the rest of the patients lives. It will cost £75 a day.


Peter