Posted on 08/16/2010 5:54:05 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
America's health watchdog is considering revoking its approval of the drug Avastin for use on women with advanced breast cancer, leading to accusations that it will mark the start of 'death panel' drug rationing.
A decision to rescind endorsement of the drug would reignite the highly charged debate over US health care reform and how much the state should spend on new and expensive treatments.
Avastin, the world’s best selling cancer drug, is primarily used to treat colon cancer and was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2008 for use on women with breast cancer that has spread.
It costs $8,000 (£5,000) a month and is given to about 17,500 women in the US a year. The drug was initially approved after a study found that, by preventing blood flow to tumours, it extended the amount of time until the disease worsened by more than five months. However, two new studies have shown that the drug may not even extend life by an extra month.
The FDA advisory panel has now voted 12-1 to drop the endorsement for breast cancer treatment. The panel unusually cited "effectiveness" grounds for the decision. But it has been claimed that "cost effectiveness" was the real reason ahead of reforms in which the government will extend health insurance to the poorest.
The Avastin recommendation led to revived allegations that President Barack Obama’s overhaul of the US health care system would mean many would be denied treatments currently available.
During the debate, those opposed to the reforms cited Britain’s National Institute for Clinical Excellence, which decides whether new treatments should be made available on the NHS on the basis of cost effectiveness, as an example of the sort of drug rationing that amounted to a "death panel"
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
The Ruling Class will ensure that they get the best health care We The People’s confiscated tax dollars can provide them. The Peons, you and I, aka enemies of the State, will get nothing.
Welcome to the Hussein, Reid, Pelosi Genocide.
bump
Walk door to door before November and inform your friends and neighbors about the truth of this premeditated genocide of the sick, disabled, and elderly. You MUST ensure that the voters understand that their lives are at stake in this election.
Keep in mind that Avastin is used for late-stage cancers.
People should be able to do pretty much whatever they want to try to live when they have such an advanced disease.
The government changing the label and thus how it can be prescribed (and thereby setting doctors up for malpractice suits if they prescribe it off-label), IS NOTHING MORE THAN RATIONING. And because they are rationing a drug to prolong life, THOSE WHO RATION ARE THE DEATH PANELS.
As a Schadenfreude point....there will be millions and millions less in the way of 'producers', so soon enough those government titsuckers will find themselves down in the sewer also.
It may be twenty years out, but of course it'll still be Bush's fault.
Their MengeleCare has got to be stopped before they recreate Hitler’s final solution with all of us as their victims.
Nice. Women helped elect Obama. How is that Hope & Change working out?
I guess this is what you call a pyrrhic victory. 70% of single white women voted for obama.
Barak Hussein bin Obama al-Kenyata's health commissar, David "Dr. Death" Blumenthal
yitbos
Yeah, makes me really proud to be a woman. Not.
Mengele Blumenthal, Hussein’s Kapo in charge of the Hussein/Reid/Pelosi Final Solution. Never Again is here!
yitbos
Of course.....But if Nazi Pelosi or Moochelle got Cancer (god forbid) I’ll bet they would pull out all the stops and get the best Drugs/Treatment....
“They Were Expendable”
title of a WWII movie starring John Wayne
And the victims of Obamacare
Keep in mind that the drug has never been shown to increase longivity for breast cancer patients. A lot of money is being made off a remedy that doesn’t work.
That’s exactly what it looks like.
OTOH, however, it may be the thin end of the wedge for future denial of effective drugs that are 'too expensive'.
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